


Perspective

by Silverlace_Vine



Series: Perspective [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Demisexuality, Dom/sub, M/M, Masturbation, Polyamory, Science Boyfriends, Stark Spangled Banner - Freeform, Threesome - M/M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-14
Updated: 2012-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-09 22:26:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 40,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/459169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverlace_Vine/pseuds/Silverlace_Vine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve walks in on Tony and Bruce, and it changes everything.</p><p>Companion/Follow-up piece to 'Stopgap'. </p><p>As ever, written for the Avengers kink meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It's two in the morning, and Steve is thrashing the bag.

For all the benefits the Serum affords him, the one he hates the most is that his stamina is unbeatable, even to himself.    It happens only rarely, but some nights he'd just like to get off and go to sleep, and all his prior attempts to do exactly that have ended in disappointment and chafing. He doesn't have to be a cutting-edge thinker to know that sexual frustration is... well, frustrating.  Before the Serum, it was never a problem; now he has urges with no desire, and he'd more accurately describe it as a side effect.

He outlasts himself, not just physically, but mentally; sooner or later he realizes it's been ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, lying in bed and stroking himself into this God-awful _boredom_.  It's pathetic, especially in the oversexed city he's found himself in. The billboards on the street are more risque than the pin-ups he used to like, and even they never really gave him the jolt that they seemed to give other guys.  They were only pictures, paper dolls; pretty in their way, but no more erotic in his eyes than postage stamps. They'd laughed at him then, assuming that he was just the faithful type, and that he only had eyes for Peggy or Bucky.  He figured they were right.

The one time he found himself desperate enough to actually brave the frightening online corridors  of modern sex entertainment, Steve found himself more than a little disgusted with the hollowness of it, the obvious, manufactured dullness; no different from the pin-up girls, just animated and done up in brighter colors and less natural proportions. He took an evening to himself, scanned the internet for something he might like, found most of it revolting, and then never bothered with it again.  He thinks it's starting to suggest he's somehow dysfunctional, that the Serum has desensitized him somehow; the thought makes him glad he's never had the chance to disappoint someone in bed with it.

And really, that's what makes it all so difficult, on nights like these; it's hard enough to let go of his time and the world he knows, and it feels so petty that this is the part of his humanity the Serum took from him.  He'd love to not need anything more complex than a pin-up girl and a few minutes alone to get a little bit of relief, but in the same way that he sometimes breaks dishes and bones without trying, the simple things just aren't enough for him.  It makes him think of Bruce and hate himself, because really, compared to him, what does any man know about losing himself?

So it's two in the morning, and Steve is thrashing the bag. It's not easy to exhaust himself; he can run marathons without tiring, he can fight for hours. The bags that Tony designed for him don't break down or burst open like the normal ones, they're heavier and filled with tougher stuff than sand, but they still can't take his full strength for very long. It's a problem Tony and Bruce have been working on on-and-off for weeks.

He lets his fists fly in a flurry of jabs, experiments with knee strikes; a right cross swings the bag back and forth, so he mimes a sidestep just to burn a little more energy, counters with an elbow strike, keeps coming at it until the thing pops off of its moorings and slides across the floor, ending in a heap a few feet away.

Steve curls his lip at it in distaste; hadn't even worked up a sweat yet.

He sighs, and goes to scoop it back up; the hooks have broken again.  Tony had fitted it with a magnet to keep exactly this from happening, but that piece seems to have broken off at the base, which means it'll need whatever piece of needlessly overcomplicated StarkTech craziness was holding it together repaired or replaced.  It'll have to go down to the lab. 

So he throws it over his shoulder and hauls it downstairs;  Tony and Bruce rarely get to sleep before three, especially not when they have a project, and they always have a project.  They should still be down there.

And they are.

It's a sight he'll be seeing when he closes his eyes for a long while:  Bruce, facing away from him, his shirt open and pooling on his elbows.  He's just barely sitting on the edge of the worktable and slowly rocking his hips back and forth, guided by a hand pressed against the small of his back.  His slacks hang loose on his hips, suggesting they're open, and it's not until he catches the faint outline of blue light on Bruce's thigh that Tony is kneeling in front of him.

When Tony stands up, Steve can see the wetness of his lips, the soft edge of his smile as he presses close against him, and murmurs softly into the graying hair at Bruce's temple.  "Too much?"

Bruce shakes his head minutely, dropping forward against Tony's shoulder.   A fine tremor runs through him as their bodies touch; Steve notices that his hands, locked in a kind of loose parade rest behind his back, are wrapped around the ends of a short steel bar.  "N-no-- but--"

"I see." The hand on Bruce's lower back urges him foward again, this time in a grind against Tony's body that makes him gasp and shudder.  "Easy; relax.  You're okay."  

Steve stands there like an idiot on the stairs, watching the two of them when he knows he really, _really_ shouldn't be seeing this. He should leave, he should pretend he never saw any of it, but as strange as it is-- _why the bar? Why is Tony controlling Bruce's movements?_ \-- there's something so intense and so intimate about it that he can't look away, even if what Steve can see with his own eyes is strictly R-rated.  

They move like they're locked in a slow dance, a steady rhythm that matches the pounding of the pulse in Steve's ears far, far too well for his own comfort, and when they stop, Tony rests his hand over Bruce's heart and pushes him down onto the table.  His hands are pinned under him, forcing his chest up and out, and Steve is gifted with a full view of his hard, flushed cock resting wet against his stomach.

Tony runs his fingers over the soft expanse of Bruce's chest hair, edged in blue from the glow of the Arc Reactor.   "I like this," he muses; there's a softness to his voice that Steve has never heard before, and the heat in the pit of his stomach flares with it.  "My lights look good on you, Bruce." 

The good doctor's response is a helpless, formless whimper, followed by a sharp gasp as Tony bends down to kiss his throat, the faint hint of teeth in each brush of his lips. When he lifts up again, he hooks his fingers in Bruce's elbows and hauls him up, turns him, and pushes him back facedown against the table.  

It's sudden, swift and deliberate-- _why doesn't he move like_ that _in combat_?-- and Tony spends a few long moments firmly adjusting Bruce's body to the proper angles: hips slighty canted upwards, shoulders pinned, legs parted, hands occupied.   When he seems to be happy with Bruce's position, Tony seals the whole of his body over his back, and thrusts slowly against him-- into him-- to a soft litany of Bruce's unhindered gasps and moans.  

And here, it clicks in Steve's mind why he can't look away, and it's _exactly_ why he shouldn't be watching this in the first place.  He takes great care not to make too much noise as he heads back upstairs with the punching bag over his shoulder, and retreats to his own bedroom, red in the face and just a little short of breath.  

He comes hard into his own hand with only a few strokes, eyes closed, going over the little details of the scene with an artist's recall for the image: Tony's gripping hands and focused eyes, the heaving of Bruce's chest and his white knuckles, their clothes half-undone as if they couldn't have waited even if they'd wanted to.  It was intimate and real, their pleasure palpable, the trust between them tangible-- and they were Bruce and Tony, his housemates, his teammates, and his friends; the furthest possible thing from paper dolls.

It takes a while for him to come down from it, but exhaustion follows closely on the heels of relief, and he lazily cleans himself up before he decides to feel guilty about it after he's had a night's sleep.  At the very least, it can wait until the scent of their sweat fades from his memory.

 

 

 

 

Steve comes down for breakfast the next morning and he feels like he woke up on the moon. He meets Tony and Bruce for steak and eggs as usual, and tries very hard not to act as if he'd had his first successful orgasm in over seventy years to the sight of the two of them making love.  

It almost works.  Tony gives him a thorough once over, and offers him a look of mild, pleasant surprise over his suspiciously-large helping of breakfast.  "What side of whose bed did you wake up on, Steve?"

"...Excuse me?"  

"Is she nice? Anybody we know?"  He's got nerves about him, like he's trying too hard to find this very amusing.

"Wha-- _no_ , no. I just slept well, that's all."  Steve pours himself a cup of coffee, pointedly putting his back to the table to obscure the redness in his face.   

"My God, you flash-fry when you're embarrassed.  JARVIS, what shade of pink is that?"

"Coral, sir."

"Tony, give it a rest. JARVIS, don't encourage him."  Steve frowns over his shoulder at the swarthy jerk, and seriously wonders if this Tony is the same one from last night.  "I have trouble sleeping since they thawed me; this was the first good night's rest I've had in awhile."  It's the God's honest truth and he's sticking with it.

"...Okay, now I _know_ something's up."  Tony leans his chin in his hand.   "You don't even want to fight over it."

"I never _want_ to fight with you, you just won't have it any other way."  Steve scowls and comes to sit down, and tries very hard not to notice that Bruce is watching the way he walks.  

"Fine, fine.  Bruce?"

Bruce looks up, and has on that sweet, deceptively harmless, I'm-not-taking-sides-because-you-guys-are-too-funny smile.  "Hm?"

Tony pours the remaining eggs and bacon from his own plate onto Bruce's before he goes to put it in the sink; it leaves the doctor's own plate piled high again.   "Polish those off for me, would you? I'm getting an early start. Since _somebody_ is being frigid and not giving me my morning argument, I need to find something else to warm my brain up."

There's something about the way Tony says it-- " _for me_ "-- that sounds like it's more than just asking Bruce not to waste food he doesn't want himself. It's subtle, but for just a second, there's a shadow of the lover Steve saw in the lab last night, still looking out through Tony's eyes.  He's so caught up in it, pondering its meaning, that he misses Tony's actual departure downstairs.

He also notices that Bruce does indeed clean his plate.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

"Where in the--"

" _Please_ tell me you're finally going to say a swear word, it makes it real for me."

" _Where were you_ , Stark? I told you to stick close and stay low, what part of that is too complicated for you to understand?" 

"I was where I _always_ am! In the air, and blowing shit up-- oh, excuse me, blowing _stuff_ up, pardon my language if your ears are burning."

"Yes, and because of that, we nearly compromised the entire mission.  Have you seriously never done anything covert before?"

"No, I haven't, because 'covert' is basically meaningless when there was never any chance that we were not going to completely destroy the entire facility.  We knew that going in, Steve!"  

Tony paces around the debriefing room, faceplate open and all but frothing at the mouth;  Steve meets him step for step.  They circle around each other like this at least once a month, depending on how often SHIELD sends them out and whether there's anyone but each other on call that day.  Unfortunately, today Clint and Natasha are somewhere in Brazil, Thor hasn't come back from Asgard, and this was not supposed to be a Hulk-friendly affair.  

"That's not the point. We had orders to remain in stealth for as long as possible--"

"And 'as long as possible' was about _fifteen seconds_!   We have two assassins on this team and they are not us. Do you ever look in the mirror after you suit up and think,  'Yes, this is the defintion of incognito; I can't wait to sneak into that cartoon planetarium"? For God's sake, I _glow in the dark._ We were never going to sneak in there!"

"Yes, and because of it, we lost everything in the facility. All the intelligence we could have gathered, completely gone, because you couldn't keep your feet on the ground for five minutes."  Steve glares, arms folded over his chest.  "We have no idea who else they might have been working with, you had no right to compromise a SHIELD investigation."

"It was _my tech_ , I had _every right_ to destroy it."  Tony's palm hits the table with a loud bang.  "They had _at least_ the latest half of the Freedom line, and a handful of things that only made it into production after Stane locked me out and I can _promise_ you those are worse.  If we hadn't gone in and started busting heads immediately, they would have had time to give an evac order and bring the whole thing down on top of us and reduce the whole area to a smoking crater, that's what the Edith System is _designed to do_."

"You could have told me that! If you knew the building was wired, why didn't you just say so?" Steve is very glad Tony has the suit on, because if Fury doesn't get in here soon, there's going to be a lot of dented metal and face blood all over this nice clean floor.  "Or were you just out there to clean up your own mess?"

"I didn't know until I saw the sensors in the walls, and all you wanted to do was tell me to shut--"

Fury walks in with a big, ugly pile of paperwork, which he wastes no time in slamming down on the desk.   His one eye roves over Iron Man and his horribly damaged armor, which seems to have caved in on the left side and is preventing him from turning his head or moving his right arm in its full range, and Captain America, whose cowl seems to have been half-burnt off and the rest of him left scorched and filthy.  

"This assignment did _not_ go well. Do I really need to tell either of you to sit your asses down?"

As it turns out, he does not.

"Right now, there is an entire bunker full of hostiles that we can't identify-- an unsettling enough concept on its own, I might add-- except that they were stockpiling weapons.  They have no national identity, they have no known motive, we don't know who they're connected to, or what they expect to achieve."  Fury lowers a cold glare at Tony, who gives it right back as if he's got an anti-authority forcefield built into his suit.  "We do not have the information we need because the team we sent in completely failed to complete its objectives.  What we do have, is a bunker full of hostiles who have been backed into a corner. This is a volatile situation, gentlemen, and it is _not_ the one we were prepared for.  I would really love to hear what you have to say for yourselves."

Before Tony opens his mouth to describe to Fury in detail which orifices he may fill with which spiky desert plants, Steve cuts in, and has the appropriately remorseful look of a chastised soldier on his face. It doesn't look that much different from his normal face.  "We compromised this mission, yes.  But it doesn't have to be the end of the line. Whoever they were, they don't have their weapons anymore; they're going to have to start looking for somewhere new to go for an arsenal.  If they have contacts, they'll go to them first; if they don't, they'll be out to look for someone who can supply them.  And if neither of those happen, then there wasn't any loss to begin with.  We can still get them, Director, we just have to watch their movements now that we've smoked them out."

Fury turns his eye on Steve in a way that practically screams _I did not want to be distracted from verbally decimating you_ , but whether in a fit of wisdom or experience, he lets it go, pointedly giving Tony the worst treatment possible by not even acknowledging he's in the room.  "You are _very_ lucky the surveillance teams agree with you.  In the meantime? Whenever your team fucks up, people on my team turn up dead, and I have a very serious problem with that, Captain Rogers.  Get your act together.  You are dismissed."

He leaves in a huff with his giant pile of paperwork, and leaves the two of them to their own devices. Tony watches him go and resists-- resists, because he's trying to be a team player, he really is--- the urge to roll his eyes or stick his tongue out; if Fury's going to scold him like a child he might as well act like one.   Instead, he just takes a deep breath, and stands.

Steve remains sitting, and takes a moment to rub the heels of his hands into his forehead.  "He's right, you know."

"Right about what? This place creeps me right the Hell out, if we have to talk about this, can we do it while we're walking?"  He glares at the wall and all of its huge, obvious spy-cams.  

Steve doesn't object, and follows Tony out of the debriefing room.  It's a long walk to the hangar anyway. "I mean, he's right.  We need to get our act together.  SHIELD is still our team, Tony, it's easy to forget that when it's just us guys in costumes."  

"SHIELD is _not our team_ , we are _not an army_ , we are _not soldiers--_ well, maybe _you_  are-- and Fury's made it very clear that we are _not his team_.  He called us in for something that _we were_ not and _are not_ equipped to handle. He has an entire boatfull of assassins and spies and people who could have gotten him what he wanted, but he called us in. Why?"

"Because we _are_ equipped for it. We knew they were stockpiling, didn't we? Do you really think a SHIELD agent with standard-issue equipment is prepared to deal with exactly the situation we walked into? Of course we knew sneaking into the place wasn't going to work for long, but that wasn't the point, they needed us to see what was going on before it blew up. We were in the best position to survive the completion of the objectives, and we did."

"Oh, I see.  Did you forget the part where you're the only one of us with super-healing, Cap? I appreciate what SHIELD does and really, I applaud their work, I do everything I can to improve their software--"

"You breach their security for fun."

"--which forces them to improve their software, it still counts.  But like I was saying, I support what SHIELD does, but we don't belong to them, and I don't like it when Fury's logic is  'have the Avengers do it, because they probably won't die'."

"You say that like you don't like being the best man for the job.  Tony, we go up to our necks in explosions all the time, that's never bothered you before."

"It bothers me when I get brought in to handle explosions and then get chewed out for handling explosions.Or, more accurately, I get brought in to handle explosions, and then you get chewed out when I do." 

"If you had just stayed on the ground like I told you--"

"Oh, for crying out loud, are you going to start that noise ag--  Wait.  Where are all the planes?"

They've arrived in the hangar, although neither would have noticed that unless they walked under the big glowing sign with the 'aircraft' symbol on it. 

"Deployed, sir."  A polo-shirted agent gives a loose salute from behind the freight desk.  "I.. ah. Well, I'm supposed to tell you that Director Fury called for an emergency training exercise, which he did, but... he also told me to expect you both."  

Tony's expression flattens faster than warm beer in a cereal bowl.  "And?"

"And.. ah.  Your parachute, Captain Rogers, sir."   Polo Shirt produces one from next to his chair, sheepishly apologetic, and perhaps a little embarrassed: the pack has a patch sewn onto it in the shape of Captain America's shield.   

Ouch.

He almost winces, putting it on. "Thank you." 

"You're welcome, Captain.  Have a good jump." 

They head to the back of the helicarrier in bruised, scolded silence; Steve takes it like he usually does, stoically and generally accepting of his mistakes, in a do-the-crime-do-the-time kind of way.  Tony, on the other hand, is fuming, and he isn't precisely sure why.

When they come to a good jump point, and the doors are opened and the wind starts howling around them, Tony closes his faceplate.  Steve just waits patiently, either mustering the courage to take that leap or doing the mental equivalent of going to his room and thinking about what he's done.

"Hey.  Don't jump."

"It's not suicide if you have a 'chute, Tony."

"No, I mean-- don't jump, fly.  With me." 

Steve looks back at Tony and wishes very much he could see his face; even through the mechanical reverb of the Iron Man voice projection, he can hear that note of ... something, in his words, and it sinks warmly into the pit of his stomach just like it did that night.  "Fly with you."  It comes out flatter than he means it to.

"Yeah."  He offers Steve his hand.  "...Fury's being an asshole. You made the call he wanted you to make, he shouldn't have busted your stones just because I disagreed with it. We can argue the principle of it all day long, but he didn't have any right to act like it was all on you. And it's not right that he's making you go skydiving in the middle of nowhere because he doesn't want to give you a ride home. So come on, don't let him toss you out like trash. Fly with me. "

"...Will you be offended if I leave the chute on?"

"No, but if you want, I can have JARVIS cue up some heartwarming sitcom theme music if you take it off."  

 

\--

 

It takes some getting used to.  Flight is complicated, and there are a lot of little things about the process that Steve has not appreciated up 'til now, particularly how many stabilizers have to be active to keep Tony flying in any one direction. The fact that he can maneuver at all is a little baffling.

Of course, when you're dangling from another man like a sloth on tree branch, most things are  baffling.  The world is upside down and what Steve can see under him is an endless expanse of bright, bright blue.  The freefall makes it easy to shift around, but clinging onto Iron Man's shoulders is the most stable position they've managed, and they're running out of time before Tony needs to hit the propulsion and get them angled toward home.

"Our stop's coming up, Cap; how's your grip?"

"Fine, I think.  How about you, are you stable?"

"My right side's a little shaky, at the moment you actually make a really great pontoon." 

"Uh. Thanks?" He has to shout over the wind, and it almost sucks the air out of his lungs every time he opens his mouth. "What-- what's going to happen, Tony? This is very, very different from--  well, anything else."

Tony responds by bending his head down just enough to block the worst of it, one arm tightening around Steve's waist as a stabilizing brace.  It's almost a hug; under better circumstances, this might be a halfway tender moment.  "You know how your stomach sinks when you get in an elevator?"

"Yeah?"

"Like that, only about a thousand times stronger. It's weird at first, but I promise it's awesome when you get used to it." 

"Marvelous."  He tightens his grip on Tony's chestpiece.  "You're sure you're okay to do this? There's still time, I can still pull the--"

"Relax, Steve. You're not going to fall, I've got you."  

The world shifts again, and this time there's pressure coursing down the lines of Steve's body as the propulsion system flares to life;  later he'll have time to regret not being able to properly hear those words, to mull over them, to really appreciate their meaning before the world blurs into freezing wind and sunlight on red and gold.

 

\--

 

When they land, Steve is dizzy and his lungs, apex of human potential aside, are having trouble adjusting to the thin atmosphere.  He wants to let go and hyperventilate a little, maybe check his nose for bleeding or be sick to his stomach, but Tony doesn't let go of him.  

Instead, he kneels down, one arm still wrapped tight around Steve's waist.  He doesn't ask if Steve's okay, because all of his vitals are clear on the HUD:  heart rate and blood pressure elevated, blood oxygenation a little low.  Normal, all things considered.   "Don't stand up 'til you're sure you're steady, Cap."

It hits Steve again, that uniquely protective tone of voice that he first heard spoken gently into the loose curls at Bruce's temples; it means more like this, an unspoken reassurance that he'll wait.  He lets his forehead rest against the red plate metal on Tony's shoulder while the world around him stops spinning.  It's a step toward consistent teamwork, and he's not going to discourage it just because Tony's kind words are a warm weight in the pit of his stomach; he can feel guilty about that one later, too.

"Welcome back."  Bruce's voice calls from the doorway to the open patio; Steve can hear his shoes scuffling on the floor as he makes his way toward them, and the rattle of the first-aid kit.  "Who's hurt?"

"No one, we're a little banged up, but we're okay."  Tony's faceplate pops open; Steve can practically hear the smile in his voice.  "Fury decided to make us walk home because we were bad, but we're too cool for that. Next briefing we have to stay after and write 'I will not detonate large weapons caches' fifty times on the blackboard."

"You flew the whole way back here from the helicarrier?  Steve, are you okay?"  

"Yeah, I'm fine. Little dizzy; it's a heck of a ride."  The world's still half-spinning; it's like he can feel the liquids in his brain still swirling around.

"I'm lucky I've never had to be conscious for it."  Bruce smiles at them both, and offers them both a hand up.  "You guys are a complete mess, we should get you cleaned up."

"I need to take the armor apart first, I can't move my arm.  It's not an injury, just some of the rotation brackets got crunched."   Tony holds up a hand, halting Bruce's worry before it makes it out of his mouth. "I'll be in the lab with the jaws of life, take your time."

Tony steps off toward the doors, pointedly avoiding the disassembly strip on his way in. It leaves Bruce and Steve alone on the ledge, watching as he casually strolls into his house with a gait so natural he might as well have been wearing nothing at all. 

"... He's a real piece of work," Steve offers.  

"Yeah, he is."   Apparently, Bruce has a way of saying things that gets Steve right in the pit of his stomach, too.

He doesn't have time to overthink it. Bruce nods toward the doors, offering Steve a shoulder to lean on if he needs it; he doesn't, but he puts a hand there anyway, just to acknowledge the effort, to prove that he's not so afraid of the Hulk that he won't afford Bruce even basic human contact.  

"You should probably come sit down and tell me how it went. Tony's version is usually a lot more..."

"Biased?"

"I was going to say 'fun'."

"Don't encourage him." 

Bruce smiles, and there's just a very small, very wry sense of irony in it, the sentiment concealed in the gleam of his teeth like the fractured view of a big dog behind the wide pickets of a tall fence.  "Somebody has to."

 

\--

 

Steve sits and tells the tale in a perfunctory way while Bruce dabs at his burns and bruises:  Fury sent them to investigate a weapons depot, to get as close and observe as much as possible, because the situation there was volatile and likely to escalate quickly.  Cue Tony going off on a tear and demolishing a bunker full of Stark Industries weapons, alerting everything in the vicinity to their presence and a whole lot of unnecessary loss of life, and almost no usable intel on the whole fiasco. 

"Why didn't they call in Clint and Natasha for it, if they needed stealth?"  Bruce lightly dabs a cotton ball soaked in antiseptic on Steve's shoulder. It's only a few cuts, likely to be gone by morning, but it's better safe than sorry.  

"They're on assignment in Brazil, and the situation was dangerous enough that they needed people who could take more punishment than their agents."   Steve frowns. "We would have done fine, if Tony hadn't gone off half-cocked like he usually does."

Bruce gives him a raised eyebrow and a stern eye. 

"...I'm sorry, Bruce, but it's true." That damned coral pink rises in his cheeks again, because as much as he doesn't want to insult Bruce's-- _lover? Is lover the right word for men?_ \-- his Tony, anyway; he doesn't want to let on that he knows about them being together in the first place.  "I know he knows _how_ to work well in a team, I just don't know why he _doesn't_."

"You can't make something go against itself, Captain."  Bruce sighs through his nose; it's a breathing technique.  He never says so because he's got it under control, but Steve recognizes it as the 'tread carefully' signal.   

Steve watches Bruce take the cotton swab away, and gently place gauze pads over the wound, broad palms and blunt fingers no less delicate for their skill.  He probably worked miracles in India.  "So that's just his nature? Being a flashy showboat?" 

"No.  Well, he's a flashy showboat, yes."  Bruce half-smiles.  "But that's not what I mean.  Tony's brain is all schematics and simulations. If you tell him to sneak around, he expands that to the risk of being caught-- and the idea of being caught scares him, in a very deep way.  Most people can't confront that kind of fear with no preparation and handle it gracefully."

Steve frowns a bit, and it clicks.   "... He's never had any training. At all."

"...No.  He's been doing the whole Iron Man thing as a vigilante project. Did.. did you think he--?"  Bruce gestures a little to Steve's uniform, indicating the military.  

"No, but.. Clint and Natasha are SHIELD Agents, I'm a soldier, Thor's from a warrior culture, and the Hulk is... the Hulk, I just... I assumed SHIELD would have given him at least _some_ basic training before they signed him on. He's a civilian, he can't... No. That makes sense."   Steve sits back against the couch, leaving Bruce to finish wrapping up his arm.   "No wonder he's sloppy in close quarters, he's probably never been in a fight outside the armor."

"He studies.  Boxing, mixed martial arts, that kind of thing."  Bruce shrugs.  "I don't know that much about it, really, the... ah, the Other Guy gets antsy.  Happy used to be Tony's coach, before."  The unspoken sentiment hangs in the air:   _before Pepper left Tony for him_.  "He practices on his own, now."

"Really? When?"  

"Usually in the afternoon, when he knows you're not using the gym.  If you're worried about how you function in combat together, that's probably a good place to start.  Other arm?" 

Steve offers Bruce his other arm, this one more burnt than cut; the gel anesthetic feels wonderfully cold on his skin, although really he hadn't been paying attention to the pain until he noticed it was gone.  "... I guess I don't get to say it much, Doctor, but thanks for patching me up." 

"It's okay.  I don't like staying behind; this part sort of makes up for it when they don't call me."   Bruce offers Steve a very gentle smile, one that has a lot less of that world-weary sardonic charm that tends to cling to him like old smoke.  He works on cleaning Steve's wounds in comfortable silence, gently clearing soot and blood from his skin with a sterilized gauze pad and a bit of rubbing alcohol, holding Steve's wrist and elbow in a way that suggests he treats everything he touches as if it were fragile and precious.  

The words come out of Steve's mouth almost before he really thinks them:  "He's lucky to have you, Bruce." 

The color drains out of Steve's face when Bruce's hands go still on his arm, but only for a brief, confused beat, before the doctor laughs and continues on.  "I was wondering if you were ever going to say anything," he admits, lightly amused.  "I wasn't really in a place to do anything about it, but I.. ah, I could scent you on on the stairs last week.  That must've been quite a shock, I'm sorry." 

"No, no, don't apologize; that's-- it was my fault, I shouldn't have--  God, I'm so sorry, Bruce, I didn't even mean to say that--"  Steve sits up.  "I swear, I didn't mean to spy on you--"

"...You were spying?"  Bruce asks it with an incredulous note in his voice, almost bordering on disbelief.  "...And you didn't want to...?"  He makes a loose fist with one hand and pounds it lightly into his palm. 

It's Bruce, so the gesture is careful without being strained, a tentative pantomime, but just the suggestion of it makes the blood run cold in Steve's veins.  He turns his eyes to Bruce's in horror. "Of course not, why would I--   _how could you even think that_? Do you really think I'd _hurt_ you or Tony over that?"  

The doctor shrinks just slightly, and hitches a shoulder;  lots of people who aren't supposed to hurt you can prove themselves very capable of that, he thinks, but he wisely keeps his counsel on that front.  "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply anything about you, personally... just, social values of the 1940's aside, Tony's and my relationship... well, I'd think it's probably very easy to misinterpret, if you just...walked in on us.  You don't like bullies." 

"...I have no idea what you mean by that,"  Steve takes a breath, reaches for Bruce's shoulders, and meets his eyes,  "but I promise you, I would never lay a finger on you or him."   He falters a little, and feels the tinge of pink hitting the tops of his ears again.  "...I'm sorry I walked in on you and I'm-- I'll admit it, I should have just turned right around and walked out, but I was more than a little shocked and..."   

He looks for words, and doesn't find any that he doesn't think would sound stupid or crazy; he takes too long, and Bruce dips his head a little to try to prompt him. "And..?"

"And... and it was something else,"  he blurts, when his brain finally can't come up with a better word.  "I can't claim to fully understand it, you and he are in a league of your own, but whatever it is you have together... is _incredible._  I'm happy for you. And for him.  So, congratulations."

Bruce listens to this and smiles, though the shape of it makes Steve think there's more to it than he's grasping, even having admitted that he doesn't really get it.   He nods, lifts Steve's injured arm again, and continues with his work.  "Thanks, Captain. I'll let Tony know he can stop worrying, then."

Somehow, in Steve's ears, it's a lonesome little drop in a vast lake of disappointments, and he isn't sure why.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agent Marco/Polo Shirt makes another appearance! I know original characters are kind of a dealbreaker for people, but he's starting to grow on me. I sort of imagine him as a SHIELD flunky whose main job is to break bad news to Tony, and generally do menial tasks that people like Hill and Fury are too good/too busy to do. I wonder if he's annoying to other people.
> 
> Also I'm opening my livejournal (silverlace_vine.livejournal.com) for fic requests. I'm going to be busy with this one for awhile, but if you have something you want to see from me, feel free to drop a prompt! I need them, I honestly cannot write without them.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony hears Bruce's footsteps coming down the stairs and his reaction is always the same: the unabashedly childish glee of a friend running up to the porch or the ice cream truck rounding the corner. It might be the least complicated thought that has ever crossed his mind:   _something great is coming_! 

That perfect ' _there-you-are!_ ' smile is more addictive than Bruce is willing to admit.  The effect is a little dulled by the fact that Tony is a mess of rising bruises and one arm is being slowly pried out of his dented armor by a pair of clumsy robots, but every time he sees it, he feels like Tony is welcoming him home.

"Did Steve already give you the boring version? I hope he did, because then I can just tell you the cool parts--"  He turns to the robot currently trying to reach a bolt near his elbow,  "--what, is it too high? Here. Good? Okay--  What was I saying? Right, storytime."

Bruce wordlessly approaches, pulls up a stool, and begins checking Tony over for damages while he tells his version of events: Fury found some bad guys and sent Team Awesome in to Scooby-Doo around in shiny, flashy costumes until everything blew up. And the bad guys had some Stark Industries weapons, so it was fair game, and after all the explosions were over and the bad guys were wiped out, the day was saved and everybody was _pissed_. 

"And then Fury was yelling at Steve because-- surprise surprise-- the shiny red and gold laser robot and the Star Spangled Man With A Plan were _shit at sneaking around_."   Tony rolls his eyes, one foot propped up on the worktable while Bruce dabs at a bruise on his ankle.  "Sometimes I think he does it on purpose just to watch Steve pout.  Oh, sure, it's adorable, but it causes problems with the _team_."

Bruce chuckles humorlessly, and pauses in his ministrations.  It's almost more of a hiccup in his movements than a real stop, but Tony's perceptive, and Tony knows him on a level he's never had the privilege of sharing with anyone else.  

"What? You're making the something's-wrong face."    Tony's hand gently lifts his chin, not insistent, just a hey-look-at-me spelled out in fingertips.   "Are you okay?"

"...Steve walked in on us, a few nights ago."  When the color starts to drain out of Tony's face, Bruce shakes his head and hurries to explain, "It's not like that. He's ... he told me he's happy for us.  Congratulations and everything."

"He didn't tell you he'd protect you? Threaten to break my teeth in? He didn't mention it to me." 

"No. And he was upset that I'd think he would." Bruce's fingers lightly curl around Tony's ankle and heel in a way that makes Tony flash back to that scene in Cinderella.  "I think he's right when he says he doesn't fully understand what you and I.. have, together, but he was supportive."

The faint little smile curving the corners of Tony's lips accents the faint, dusky pink of his cheeks rather nicely, Bruce thinks.   "Leave it to the Boy Scout to be unconditionally accepting of weird science relationships.  Are you cool with that?"

"I like what we have. But..um."  Bruce takes a slow, calming breath.   "It.. just made me think about it, to hear him talk about it like it's..."  He trails off, lacking the words. 

"Like it's more than you think it is?"

"... I don't know what it is."  His eyes stray to Tony's kneecap.  It had begun as an experiment, a way to give Bruce a little more room to breathe in the space he had to share with the Hulk.  It worked, and with practice, it had become a key element in both their lives, allowing them to become acquainted with parts of themselves they had never had the chance to explore before.  "But, I... are we...?"

"Hey."  Tony's fingers thread through Bruce's hair in a way they only do when they're alone.  "This is new, it's okay if we don't have a good name for it yet, but I see what you mean. Steve's.. Steve is good with people when it counts. He might miss things once in awhile, but he's not the kind of person who sees things that aren't there."   He looks down at the hands cradling his ankle, thoughtful.  "Do you want there to be more to it?"

"...I don't let myself think about it, if I can," Bruce admits, and closes his eyes when Tony's fingers curve behind his ear. "But if you really want an answer, I'll find someplace out of the way and give it some consideration."

"Only if you're comfortable, Bruce, don't push it if you don't want to," Tony responds easily.  "Though, if you don't mind repeating it, what did Steve tell you? It wasn't anything _I_ need to punch _him_ for, right?"

That puts a genuine smile on Bruce's face.  "He said you're lucky to have me."

"He's not wrong."  

The doctor leans over to the first aid kit, quietly pleased with himself and with Tony, and reaches for the cotton balls and the antiseptic.   "So. What are you going to do about this whole... covert, stealth thing, if they're going to track that thing you blew up?"

Tony's mood sours again. "Well, nothing, obviously. Hopefully Fury will know better than to call us to do something so pointless a second time."

"Huh."  

"What?"

Bruce shrugs and looks up at Tony over the top of his knee; Tony takes a moment to thank every and all divine presences in attendance for that image.  "I guess I'm surprised, that's all." 

"Surprised at what? You're not going to give me the 'I thought you could be a team player' speech, are you? Because I'm seriously getting sick of hearing that." 

"No, I'm just saying, you have lots of suits.  You're up to...what? Eight, now?"

"Bruce."

"Because I know you have access to the helicarrier's internal servers--"

"I know what you're trying to do."  Tony tries to squirm out of his armor, but the robots still have it in their grip and he can't get out of the sleeve, and Bruce has his bare foot and most of his leg in his hands. Escape is impossible.

"--and it'd be a good idea, wouldn't it? To have a suit with--"

"Please don't say it."  Tony covers his face with one hand.

"--a cloaking device?" 

Tony keeps his eyes covered for a long few minutes, biting his lower lip, standing on one leg and braced between his fellow genius and the robots he built to take him out of his super-advanced robot armor and pretending he isn't already thinking about how _completely awesome_ that would be.

Bruce lifts up just enough to drop a kiss against the top of Tony's shin.  "We can hack the helicarrier's obfuscation system and figure out how they do it," he says.

There's a beat of silence and stillness as Tony watches those soundlessly laughing, endlessly-haunted, way-too-sharp dark eyes peering up at him.  And then it passes when he drops that foot to hook it under the stool's crossbar, pull it close, and bends down to kiss Bruce with his arm still suspended from the grip of the robots.   "You," he says,  "are _dangerous._ " 

"Me and the Other Guy keep a running tab on who's the biggest threat."  

"Oh, yeah?" Tony beams, because Bruce doesn't make jokes about the Hulk unless he's in a really good mood.  "Who's winning, you or him?"

"Right now? You."  Bruce's smile stays where it is, but he looks up at Tony, briefly breaking their eye contract to sweep over the bruises and the crunched armor that could have easily gone worse than it had, with a slightly dimmed enthusiasm.  "... Be more careful next time." 

He rarely says anything so openly sentimental, and when he does, it catches Tony's attention like a gentle tug on his sleeve: it's not a demand, it's not even really a request, just the small plea of a man who is slowly learning that not _everything_ he wants is already forfeit.   

When the gauntlet finally comes away, Tony lets it clatter to the floor in favor of folding his arms around Bruce's shoulders, and lets that be his answer.

 

\--

 

They stagger up out of the lab well after the sun's come up, blinking in the golden-pale daylight as it floods the kitchen.   They look like they always do after they've had a productive night: dark circles under reddened eyes, drowsy smiles and shuffling steps.

Tony has his back end sticking out of the fridge as he slumps half into it. His brain has vague aims of seeking something to eat, but he can't tell the difference between the milk and the orange juice and all the bacon in the world isn't incentive enough for him to try to operate the stove.  Bruce digs in one of the cabinets only to remind himself that they don't keep Pop-Tarts in the house anymore; it's just easier that way.

Perhaps guided by the grace of the divine, that's when Steve comes back from church with a box of fresh, warm, wonderful donuts.

Tony all but swoons. "I take back every mean thing I've ever said to you, Steve.  As of this moment, you're officially my hero."

"And all it took was a couple of bear claws. Go figure.  Next time we go on assignment I'll make sure to bring one with us."  Steve laughs despite himself, and slides Tony a glass of milk. He's tired enough that he probably won't notice it isn't coffee. "I'm guessing you guys have been in your clubhouse all night instead of sleeping?"

"We're working on something-- it's great.  It'll be great once we're done, I've never worked with metamaterials before. Thanks for the donuts, we were... we're houseplants, right this moment."  Bruce traces a somewhat wobbly polygon in the air with two sugar-dusted fingers.   "We're building an omnidirectional prismatic array."

"... Like one of those really old lighthouses?" Steve's eyebrow scoots up in confusion. "Seems a little low-tech, for you."

"No, no-- you're actually close and I'm impressed, but it's different, inside-out."  Tony waves his hands a little.  "It's for a stealth suit. The simulation's still compiling but if it works,"  he manages to swallow his mouthful before his face spreads in a triumphant grin,  "I am going to be just _intolerable_.   Fury wants covert? He won't know I'm in the room until it's too late.  Up top, Big Science."

Bruce holds up a hand for Tony to mash his palm against, but he's too sleepy to hit it with the necessary force to make anything but a frosting-and-powdered-sugar squishing noise where their fingers collide.   

"It's going to be incredible. Revolutionary, even.  Leaps and bounds in stealth technology."  Tony prattles a bit, happily pondering his and Bruce's upcoming accomplishment.   

Steve laughs into his hands.   

"You laugh now, Cap, but you'll see. I'm gonna knock your olive-drab socks off."

"I bet you are, except for the part where the suit weighs a few hundred extra pounds and clanks like a dump truck and glows in the dark," Steve says.  

" _What!?_ You see what I have to put up with, Bruce? Now he _agrees_ with me that the sneaky bastard approach is bullshit. I'm trying to meet you halfway, you ingrate."  

"I'm just saying, you could just _learn_ how to handle yourself in stealth, you don't have to revolutionize military science every time you want to do something you've never done before.  You can't build a machine to do something if you don't know how it's done." 

"That's what I _do_ , Steve, that's my _thing_. I'm building the future, one photon-manipulating microfiber at a time. I can't fly, but my suit does that, doesn't it?" 

"But you know how flying _works_ , this is different."

"You guys' arguments are stupid," Bruce puts in.

The other two reorient their attention on him as if he's suddenly magnetized.  He never butts in on their stupid arguments.

Bruce pops the last of his donut into his mouth.  "Steve. You should help us in the lab. We'll test it against you: you know all the practical stuff about covert ops, right?  We'll learn from your example.  And if it works, you can do your stealth missions with no problems."

Tony and Steve look at each other across the table.

"Fifty bucks says the stealth suit beats you out in the first test phase."

This is the part where Steve usually backs off. He's not usually a betting man, and he's certainly not the kind of guy that bets against his friends.  But Tony's giving him that competitive, lean-and-hungry look with underslept shadows under his eyes, and Bruce is smiling so loose and laid-back and comfortable; call it peer pressure, but now's not the time to back down: when you have the advantage, press it. 

"Fifty? That seems kinda small potatoes for you, Tony, don't you think?"  Steve leans forward just a little.  

"That's for _your_ benefit, Methuselah, I don't know how deep your wallet is. You want bigger stakes? Name 'em."  Tony leans back against his chair, nonchalant as you please. He would look much more intimidating if he didn't have a smear of vanilla cream on his cheek.

Steve grins.  "Call it that Bridgestone 350 in your garage."

 Bruce's mouth drops open.  Tony sits up almost immediately.  He doesn't own very many motorcycles; bikes aren't usually muscle car enough for his tastes.  Oh, he's got a few, but his vehicle collection is precisely that: a collection.  Steve might as well be asking for one of his toes.   "Uh huh. And if I win? I don't really want that tinker toy you roll around town on."

"If you win? I will personally seek out an unauthorized holder of Stark Industries weapons, and you and I will go and take them out." 

"And how do you plan on making that happen? Don't make promises you can't keep, Cap."  But Tony's all primed and ready to take it, Steve can see it in his posture, the slightly forward set of his shoulders. Even if he couldn't, the intense glow of the arc reactor through his T-shirt would've given it away.

"I made a military career out of hitting Hydra weapons plants and SHIELD has surveillance I never could have dreamt of at the time; I think I can manage finding your leftover toys."  

"Uh huh. And this hypothetical jaunt across the world-- because that's what it's going to be-- won't be a by-the-books, no-fun-allowed field trip, will it?" 

"No SHIELD involvement. No regulations, no paperwork, no bullshit. I'll even let you call the shots."

Tony looks to Bruce with the biggest, happiest, sleepiest grin that's ever been on his face. "He even made it real for me."  And then turns back to Steve, one hand extended.  "All right, Captain, you're on." 

They shake on it, and once the deal is sealed, Tony happily bounces to the coffee maker, having found the world's best way to give himself a second wind.

 

\--

 

Version 1.0 is a thing of beauty, Tony thinks, but he thinks that about all of his inventions.   It's sleek, black, and completely lightless from the outside. The outer shell is faintly textured with the first incarnation of his cloaking device, designed to bend and refract every single photon of light that touches it into harmless invisibility as long as the activation field is on.   When he lands in Central Park, he skips the intro music and he's converted the propulsion system so that he doesn't leave a golden comet tail behind him.  Tony Stark has built himself a ninja suit, and he's about to win a bet.

Steve arrives with no fanfare at all, dressed in surprisingly plain clothes: loose, black slacks, a navy SHIELD T-shirt, and a pair of blue Chuck Taylors. It's the most casual either of the scientists in attendance have ever seen him dress.  "Your suit looks good," he says, just enough emphasis on the 'looks' part to imply that yes, in fact, he can still see it. 

"Enjoy it while it lasts, Cap. I see you've dressed out for gym. Did you always own those, or did you get them especially for this?"  He points at Steve's shoes.

"A fan made them, and they fit, so it seemed appropriate. Just in case anyone was thinking this wasn't also an ego trip on my part," Steve replies mildly, and gestures to the Converse star on his heel: it's been replaced with a Captain America shield.  "Really, Tony, I'm looking forward to see what you can do in that thing." 

"I _live_ to exceed your expectations." 

Bruce clears his throat, and then hands out a pair of Central Park maps;  it's local, an area that they both know well enough, and this late at night, there's not going to be any kids around that couldn't stand to run into Iron Man and Captain America playing at stealth-ops.  

Tony scans his, and then hands it back;  Steve looks over his once, and puts it in his pocket.   While they do, Bruce takes a couple of plastic flags and tapes one between each of their shoulderblades; one red, one blue.   "There's a starting point marked for each of you, about three hundred yards in opposite directions;  after that, it's pretty much capture-the-flag, but no funny business: you can't take your flag off and hide it in a tree or something, or we'll be here all night and Steve's the only one of us who gets along with the police.  First one to meet back here with the opponent's flag wins.  And if you guys could do me a favor and shake hands on this or something, that would be great, I really don't want this to get ugly."

Steve offers his hand, half-expecting Tony to fake him out when he hesitates, but Tony takes his hand, shakes it firmly, and then claps him on the shoulder.  The warm feeling settles in the pit of his stomach, because Steve knows he's doing it for Bruce.  

The tinny reverb of Iron Man's voice says, "It won't get ugly, right?"

"No."  Steve smiles.  "Friendly competition only."

"Cool."

They part ways, Steve walking, Iron Man flying, toward their respective starting points. 

Bruce shakes his head and has a seat on one of the park benches, just on the other side of the swings.   "And don't spook me when you get back!"  

 

\--

 

It's dark, and that suits Tony just fine.

"All right, JARVIS, it's go-time. Switch to infrared.  How's the invisibility holding?"

The display in front of him dissolves into a wash of deep blues, interrupted by the occasional bolt of bright orange as a small animal darts across his field of vision.

"Obfuscation is functioning at one hundred percent." 

"Good. Let's get this show on the road.  Where is he?"

The map projects itself onto his view, a number of minor blips blinking and moving across its various points: a couple of quick-moving blips, probably joggers, a big red blip pulling three smaller blips, most likely a horse-drawn carriage ride, and a comfortingly solid, stationary blip that JARVIS immediately identifies as Bruce... but no Steve.

"Oh, he's good."

He quiets the propulsion down to its lowest setting, and glides toward the joggers like a water strider.

 

\--

 

He's gotta hand it to him, normally Iron Man is a giant red-and-gold action figure covered in shiny lights and blaring AC/DC; tonight, he's not even a shadow.  

But that's not what's important at the moment:  Steve knows he doesn't have to beat Tony to evade detection: he has to beat JARVIS, and that's at least ten times harder, especially considering how little he knows about what the house AI can actually do.  Really, it just makes it a fair fight.

"Does the ride seem a little slow to you?"

"It's after midnight, the poor horse has probably been giving rides all day. Just enjoy the ambiance, let 'em take it easy for a little while."

_Sorry_ , Steve internally apologizes to the riders and the horse. _I guess you didn't sign on to carry this much extra weight._  

But he smiles and readjusts his grip, thinking that hanging upside-down from the bottom of a horse-drawn carriage is much, much easier than hanging onto Iron Man.  For now, all he has to do is keep his senses open, because if he can't hear it or see it, he's sure he can smell the exhaust.

\--

Tony passes over the joggers without disturbing them more than a stiff breeze would, and is only a little disappointed that they're a pair of athletic thirty-somethings in clingy warm-up suits and not Steve being his charming self for heat-vision camouflage.

It leads him toward the carriage, the next-largest heat center on the map;  he follows it awhile, looking for any signs of foul play, but the infrared scan turns it into a big, featureless, red-and-orange blob.

"JARVIS; switch to standard in two hundred feet. I want normal vision once we get close to the lampposts." 

Later, he'll identify that as the moment everything went south.

Just before the carriage got within range of the lights, a warm blob darts out from under the carriage and rolls off into the bushes, disappearing behind a wash of cool green and blue foliage. 

Naturally, Tony dives after it with a burst of vapor from the propulsion jets; it's the right height for Steve when he's doing the tuck-and-roll thing, and God it's going to feel so good to finally prove to him that the future doesn't suck--

Not close enough to "instantly", Tony realizes he just body-checked a cotton-polyester hoodie, slowly turning purple as the body heat fades from the fabric.  He whirls around to catch what has to be Steve with a red flag clutched in his fist, running across the grass towards the park bench where Bruce is waiting, and makes a second dive.

The flag peels away from behind Steve's shoulderblades easily, because of course he wouldn't have taken off his hoodie without re-sticking the flag back onto his own back.  Prize in hand, Tony shouts for JARVIS to send all nonessential power to the propulsion, and he's sure he's going to win because now it's down to a race and Tony loves to go fast, and then Captain America is clinging to his waist and trying to wrestle him down into the dirt, and the stealth suit can only fly low and Steve is so _tall_ and he weighs _so damn much_ \--

They clip a rock.

Central Park is suddenly on the spin cycle, and Steve is treated to a mouthful of dirt and grass and the exolayer of Tony's invisibility array as it shatters into a spray of wafer-thin microfiber crystals. They go tumbling toward the playground, ending up tangled in the swings like a pair of toys caught up in a telephone cord, each with one fist and the other's flag thrust forward as if they were both trying to cross a finish line.

Bruce is too busy laughing himself to tears to help them up.

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

\--

Steve doesn't have a lot of reasons to come down into the lab, but tonight, he has to get a handful  of broken microfiber crystals picked out of his skin.  The array had been prepared to withstand high winds, but not impacts, which meant it was going back to the drawing board once all the shards were extracted out of Steve's neck.

"I can't _believe_ you ruled yourself the winner, Bruce."   Tony is slightly more engaged in watching his knee slowly turning purple under the ice pack and bandages. For a torn meniscus, it isn't terrible, but it's more than a little embarrassing; apparently sacrificing structural strength for a quieter, lightweight chassis had been a bad idea.  Either that, or that was the toughest rock in New York.

Steve tips his head to the side, offering the good doctor room to pluck out the broken fibers. "It's the only fair ruling, isn't it? He's the only one who actually made it back to home base.  And he had both fla-- _ow!_ "

"Sorry, Captain.  These little suckers are worse than glass." 

Steve hisses briefly in pain. It's like being jabbed in the neck with a tiny, angry porcupine. "S'alright. Sorry I flinched.  What are these even made of?"

Tony taps the glass of his arc reactor.  "Some of my unused palladium cores, among other, less-readily available things. Right now your neck's got close to ten thousand dollars' worth of precious metals jammed in it."

"I'll be sure to inform the pensio- _ow-_ -pension office."  Steve rolls his eyes, apparently allowing himself a moment of childish petulance in compensation for his slightly bruised dignity. "That does leave us with a problem, though, Doctor." 

"What's that?"  

Steve skirts his glance over to Tony, grinning just a little; the world really can't do enough nice things for Bruce Banner to make up for the sheer amount of crap it's laid on his doorstep.  "You weren't in on the bet."

Tony's eyes light up as he catches on.  "Right! You need to decide on your winnings, since, you know. Contest, interest of fairness, all that good teamwork stuff."

"What? No, I didn't-- I didn't really do anything, it was you guys' thing--" 

"No, really, we insist. You were the referee, you made the call, so it's up to you."  Steve smiles.

"... Well."  Bruce chuckles lightly, and straightens his glasses. It's not quite as sinister as it really deserves to be.  "... First of all, I think Tony should give up the bike, because your neck's full of his genius.  I think Thor would call it weregild."

Steve beams in triumph and looks over at Tony, and only gloats a _little_ , in the interest of fun. "That sounds fair to me."

"Aww, come on!" Tony whines, though it's really more for the principle of the thing: he'd probably have handed the Bridgestone over ages ago if he'd known what a great look it'd put on Steve's face.  "That's not for _you_ , that's for _him_ , you can't just say you're the winner and then make it so he gets the prize--" 

"Second of all," Bruce interrupts seamlessly, "I think Steve should still find someplace that's holding your weapons.   And when you go to blow it up, I want to come too."

That shuts them both up, at least until Tony's enthusiasm starts flares to life.  "You want to come blow up bad guys with us?"

Bruce turns a little pink. SHIELD doesn't call on him if they can avoid it, not unless there's gamma radiation involved, and even then they usually let him telecommute.  "Well. I've been thinking... since, uh.  Well, we've been... together, the Other Guy behaves a little better, so.. maybe I could stand to give him some exercise."

Tony is too busy being extremely pleased with himself, but Steve just looks between the two of them and stares.  "...It's affecting the Hulk?" he asks, awkwardly, because he has so many more questions that he knows are _very inappropriate_ to ask.

Bruce starts to answer, but Tony interrupts.  "That was the whole point!" 

"The... the point of what?"  Steve's heart sinks a little. What he'd seen... had it been an experiment? Just more science? Maybe, he thinks, that's why Bruce had been afraid he'd be angry about it, finding out that they were doing... that, just as part of their tinkering?

"Our--  wait, do you mind if I--?"  

"Go ahead, just don't shock him too much, I'm still working."   Steve can't properly see him, but he can feel Bruce's entire presence shrink down to the size of a thimble-- probably one with reddened cheeks, if the warmth back there is any indication. 

Tony sits up a little and gestures idly with his fingertips, as if he's manipulating one of his 3D projections.  "Bruce Hulks out when his heart rate reaches a certain point, right?  Well, there's actually kind of a threshold there.  If he works up to it slowly, and reaches a certain state of mind before he gets to that point, he can exceed that heart rate limit without triggering the transformation."

Steve tries not to look as crestfallen as he is, and mostly manages it.  "... And you've done that?"

Behind him, the doctor nods; Steve can feel another one of the shards sliding out of his skin, but it's hard to feel anything over the intense heat of his continuing embarrassment.   "I don't always have the nerve to risk it, but ... yeah, we have."

"And the fact that Bruce wants to let the Hulk cut loose and smash, tells me it's _working_ , and that is worth _celebrating_.  Does that mean we get to play tonight?"  Tony asks with a kind of affectionate glee that makes Steve's stomach drop right into his heels.

"Not on that knee."  Bruce gives Tony a reproachful look over the top of Steve's head. "You're having ibuprofen for dinner and going straight to bed if we have to carry you up there, and you're staying there tomorrow."  

"Oh, come on! If you're going to make me lay in bed on pills, can't they be the fun kind? Wait, can you write prescriptions?"

"You drink too much for the fun kind, and no, I can't.  But if you skip the pills, you can have all the alcohol you want."

"Close enough!" 

 

Tony and Bruce chatter amongst themselves, but for Steve, it just blurs into a murky white noise.  He's not sure why it bothers him so much to think that their relationship is just more science, a game, just that he feels let down by it somehow.  Maybe it's selfishness at its core, the disappointment of realizing that something that affected him so deeply was just an illusion; it almost feels like he's been tricked.  

And it's not just that it's science-- if it were just science, it would still make perfect sense for the two of them-- it's that it's such _mercenary_ science, using something that should be, that _looked like_ an expression of love, to suppress a biological change.  It makes him feel old to cling to the idea that sex should be shared between lovers when there are two geniuses talking about it as if it's a backyard baking-soda volcano.  He distantly hears the clink of glasses: Tony's brandy, naturally. 

They're really celebrating it, and to Steve, it's heartbreaking.  Raising a glass to this seems so perverse, like some kind of anti-wedding toast.  Ah, and another; naturally, Tony is drinking Bruce's share, because of course Bruce can't drink.  It ought to have been a sweet gesture.

He knows he shouldn't judge. He has no right to be angry, but he had walked in on something he'd thought was beautiful, seen sparks of it in their voices ever since.  And really, if he lets himself admit it, he's fallen a little in love with it himself, only to realize it's the same as the pin-up girls: pretty paper dolls.  It's an unfair thought and he hates himself for thinking it.

"Steve?  Earth to Steve, come in, Captain."   There's a hand in front of his face.

Steve blinks himself back into awareness, finding the doctor standing in front of him and a slightly wobbly-looking Tony sitting on the workbench.  "Hm? Ah. Sorry, Bruce, I was out there for a minute. What were you saying?" 

"I was asking if you could take Tony to his room? He shouldn't walk on that knee for a couple of days, and I don't think I can carry him myself."  Bruce smiles a bit sheepishly, holding a little tray full of bloody-tipped microfiber shards.  "Sorry if it itches."

It does itch, but Steve hasn't noticed for awhile; he nods and goes to pick Tony up without preamble.  "It's fine, Bruce.  Thanks for getting them out." 

Maybe slightly too drunk to care, or maybe just in too good a mood, Tony flings one arm around Steve's neck as he's lifted into a bride-carry; the other, he waves to Bruce.  "You're going to come visit me when you're done, right? Because I'm hurt, you know, completely devastated. See how devastated I am?"  He goes dead-weight in Steve's arms: truly a Shakespearean death-swoon that could not be better expressed if he were classically trained.  "Whither Tony Stark? The stones hath felled him! Slain by Central Park, he lay in the arms of his best rival." 

"That would sound better if you could do a decent impression of Thor.  And yes, I will." 

"All right.  See you soon, then."  Tony straightens up a little as Steve carries him upstairs, smiling so contentedly, Steve is almost sure Tony doesn't notice the way he curls in a little against his chest.

 

\--

 

It's a short walk, but Steve takes the long route to avoid having to squirm into the elevator with an armload of injured genius.  Still, he finds time to space out again,  not paying attention to anything but the warm weight of Tony in the crooks of his elbows and the questions rolling around in his head.   It's not until he gets to Tony's bedroom door that he snaps out of it, half-realizing that Tony's been talking to him.

Tony looks up at him with those damnably expressive dark eyes, confused, and slightly awash in the blue glow of the arc reactor.  "I said, you can put me down now, you know." 

"No. You're hurt.  And don't be a fussbudget about it, we can't go blow up your weapons if you can't fly safely." 

"Killjoy." 

He lets himself into Tony's room, and isn't surprised by what he sees:  it's all smooth, glossy white interrupted with sleek, inky black and accented here and there in red and gold. It reminds him of  dominoes and casino dice and poker chips.   

He'd once half-hoped for something a little more classical, green glass desk lamps and brass flourishes, maybe some treasured thing that had once belonged to Howard: schematics on the walls, pictures of family, something to connect it to someone he'd known.  But now he sets Tony down in his low, black-and-white bed, and  appreciates how fitting it all is: all or nothing, calculated risks, gambling and numbers.  That's Tony all over.

"Will you be okay?" he asks, and sits down.  The mattress sinks softly under his weight, and warms to his body almost instantly as if he's been sitting there for hours.

"Yeah.  Will you be? You've been in space all night.  I'm sorry about your neck, by the way, I didn't mean--" 

"It's fine, Tony, really. It was an accident, I shouldn't have been hanging on to you like that. Honestly.. It was fun, I haven't really played around like that in awhile. Maybe ever."  Steve shakes his head.  "It's nothing you did.  Sometimes it hits me how out of place I am, that's all; it's distracting.  Does your knee hurt?"

"...No, but now you're really acting weird, I thought we were still having fun."  Tony sits up.   "Really, what's the matter?"

Steve's quiet a long while, watching his fingers folded in his lap, the way the blue light sits across his knuckles, his nails, the edges of his forearms.   "Do you really want to know?"

"I'm asking, aren't I?"

"...Bruce told you that I walked in on you a while back, didn't he?"

"Yeah. He also said you were okay with it."

"I am. Or I was.  I misunderstood, I think, and I don't want to keep misunderstanding, so I hope you don't mind if I'm a little frank about this."   He looks back at Tony, disappointed but resolute.

Tony is very used to not having to pay much attention to comprehend anything that goes on around him, often to the point of upsetting people.  Recalling conversations with perfect clarity disturbs people when they think he isn't listening.  So he sits up, rests an elbow on his good knee, and faces Steve: he owes him that much.  "Speak freely, soldier."

He almost wants to give Tony a dirty look, but really, the phrase helps, just a little bit.  "Is it really just... an _experiment_ , to you? What you have with Bruce?"

There's a brief pause while Tony's brain compiles exactly how difficult this conversation is about to become, and then he takes a deep breath.  "The simple answer is, 'No, but it started out that way'.  And it was his idea, so don't look at me like you think I should be ashamed of myself."

"I don't, I promise."  Steve lets his eyes fall on the arc reactor. It's not the only soft, glowing blue thing in the room, he notices; little lamps and track lights in the walls softly cast the room in the same color.  "...But if it's not, then I _really_ don't get it.  I don't want to pry, I know it's none of my business, but..."

"But what? Steve, you live here. Whatever it is, if it's bothering you, it's _my_ business, and I don't like business getting in the way of fun.  Really, just spit it out, I promise I'll give it to you straight."  

Steve finally just takes a breath and blurts it out.  "What exactly _is_ your relationship? You talk about it like it's just science, but the way you talk to each other, the way you act with each other... I thought it was obvious that there's more to it than that.  A _lot_ more, Tony."

"It's our relationship. We don't have a name for it."  Tony shrugs.  "I don't know what to call him since we pretty clearly became more than friends.  I think the technical way to say it would be 'he's my sub', but I've never liked that word." 

"Your what?" 

"My sub? ... Did Bruce leave that part out?" 

"Apparently."

Tony tips his head in confusion.  "But he said you were upset that he thought you'd get violent about it.  What did you think he was talking about?"

"That you and he are... well, I probably don't know what the right word for it is now, but back then, we called guys like you friends of Dorothy."  Steve is grateful for the lights. Maybe they'll make his blush a little less noticeable. 

"Oh! No, no, fuck that, why would you care if we're queer? Which we're not, for the record, but that's a conversation you should probably have with Wikipedia."  Tony shakes his head, lightly waving off the subject with a flick of his wrist.   "We know you're not a bigot, Steve.  We were afraid you'd think I was hurting him."

"He.. uh. He didn't look hurt, to me."  Steve tries very hard not to remind himself of it, but he's never had problems recalling images, and he committed that one to memory much more strongly than most.

"Good, because he wasn't.  See, there's a type of relationship-- the nice word is "alternative" -- wherein one person cedes control to another.  There's a lot of variations, but what Bruce and I have is an informal Dominant/submissive arrangement. I'm his Dom, he's my sub.  Follow?"

"Probably not, but I'm listening."  Steve turns slightly to face him;  if he thinks of it like a debriefing, like it's official Avengers team business, it's easier to focus.  

"It means when he says he's ready to give it a try, he cedes all authority to me, willingly and with his full consent, and I control him as completely as possible.  That's the part we figured you wouldn't like." 

Steve would be lying if he were to say he approves; he doesn't, yet.  "I can see why you'd think that."

"Yeah."  Tony offers an apologetic half-smile.  "My job at that point is to get him into what's called 'subspace', a kind of psychological state that, for Bruce, means avoiding the change into the Hulk completely without having to give up whatever he's feeling at the time.  He describes it as absolute euphoria and pleasure, almost like an out-of-body experience: he feels everything going on around him, but at a step removed. And he needs that step to keep from Hulking out if he wants to be able to get close to somebody."

"So it's just for bread and cheese?"

"What?"

"Er.  No, sorry. I mean, that's why you-- it's just sex? Really?" 

"Why do you sound so disappointed when you say that?"  Tony leans his chin in his hand. At some point during all this, Steve's become very fascinating in his awkward dance around whatever issue he's clearly orbiting. A soft silence stretches between them, the way it occasionally does, and slowly Tony begins to realize that whatever this is, is much more personal than he would have guessed.  He'd been prepared to deal with euphemisms and old-fashioned social values, but this seems to run much deeper. 

When he speaks, finally, it's quiet, and unsure.  "...Because you seem so in love."

It strikes Tony silent for a heartbeat or three. The best he can manage is an awkward,  "Okay."

"I mean it."  His ears feel like they're about to catch on fire and Steve is sure the dim lighting isn't helping him anymore.  "You don't see yourselves the way I see you. I don't know why." He stands up, rakes his fingers through his hair. The frustration flakes off of him like old, chipped paint left on too long.  "It was such a stupid accident. I went down to the lab because I broke the sandbag again, and there you were, and there he was, and I knew I should've just walked off but I couldn't, and--" 

"Not that I want to split hairs over it, but I think most people would be kind of shocked, Steve. Really, you don't have to go completely nuts over it."

"No! No, you don't-- erngh."   Steve takes a deep breath, tries again.  "Looking at sex has never done anything for me. Never. I don't know why, it just doesn't.  It doesn't mean anything to me unless there's meaning in it." 

"Well, that's very admirable, Steve,"  Tonly drawls, eyes threatening to roll so hard they could end up across the room, "and I'm very happy for you that your sexual and moral values are so strong, b-- wait."  He leans forward, slightly confused but taking those first spriting steps toward realization.  "It meant something to you? Seeing Bruce and me?"

"Tony, for just that minute, it meant _everything_ to me. And ever since then I keep seeing little echoes of it, in the things he says, the way you look at him." He closes his eyes. "And hearing you write it off as ordinary science is just... I can't even listen to it, it's like watching a couple of kids spitting on a Rembrandt."   Steve leans against the wall. He tells himself it's after one in the morning, there's no reason he shouldn't be tired, but the late hour has nothing to do with it.   "I'm not saying I want to dictate what your relationship should be, obviously there's a lot about it I don't get...but it _can't_ just be science, Tony, do you really think that's all it is?"

"Of _course_ it isn't, but do you really think I'm stupid enough to tell Bruce that?" 

It snaps Steve's attention to him like his neck is springloaded.  "Why in Hell wouldn't you?"

"Because it's a trust thing."  Tony glares up at Steve.  "I'm not dumb and, contrary to popular belief, I'm not shallow, either.  Bruce came to me with the idea because he trusts me, and he trusts me because he knows if he draws a line, I'm not going to cross it.  This is a man who has been repeatedly abused and disrespected by everyone who was ever supposed to protect him, and that sure as Hell isn't going to be me."

"How does admitting how you feel about someone amount to breaking their trust, Tony?"

"It doesn't. But _he_ has to be the one to make that first move. I'm a people-collector, Steve, you know that. Everyone who matters to me? I want them right here, where I can take care of them, where I can see them and touch them and know they're safe. And that's completely new to me.  I know you're used to having an entire group of commandos at your back, but I've spent most of my life functionally alone-- except for Pepper, and she did everything she could to tell me she didn't want to spend her life being Iron Man's terrified girlfriend before she and Happy went back to California. I just wasn't hearing it until it was too late."   Tony swallows hard around the lump in his throat. It's the first time he's ever admitted it to himself, really.  "I don't want Bruce to think he's just rebound action. I don't want him to think I'm pushing him into being more than what we are now--"

"--Because he'll think you're trying to control him, too." 

"Or the Hulk will. And that's worse. The Hulk ties into Bruce's vulnerabilities and instincts, and that's pretty much straight where we go when we're alone.  So you're right.  Maybe I'm in love with him, but I'm not going to say a word until he tells me that's what he wants." 

Steve's hand reaches for Tony's shoulder, because it's a unique hard-luck story that could really only come from Tony about Bruce, like most things that exist between them.  "...That's rough, Tony. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It feels good to say it."  He sags a little under the weight of that hand; something about it makes Steve feel that warm drop of something in his stomach.  "You're not going to tell him, right?"

"No. But I still think you should." 

"Figured that's what you'd say."  Tony sighs.  "But.. I guess if that's what was bothering you, you're okay, now? That matters to me, if that wasn't obvious before now." 

Steve blinks slightly, because he hadn't. But then the words come back to him, slowly, the pooling warmth spreading from that single drop. _Don't jump, fly with me. I've got you.  Don't stand 'til you're ready._   "...Now that you mention it, yeah, I guess it was."  He doesn't realize that his hand has gone from Tony's shoulder to the back of his neck until he can feel his thumb brushing against Tony's ear.

"Good."   

It hangs by a very thin thread drawn very tight between them, Steve's carefully restrained, cautious instinct to touch versus the pull of Tony's quietly hidden denial and the vulnerability of a confession to the wrong person.  It's small, and raw, and stinging with the exposure like a shallow, painful cut. 

And then there's a knock at the door, and it breaks like spidersilk.  "Tony? Are you still awake?"

"Yeah, I'm up. C'mon in."   

Steve gets to his feet as the door opens, and offers a very surprised Bruce a hasty 'excuse me, I'll leave you alone' as he beats a hasty retreat.  He doesn't stay to listen to them talk outside the door because he's eavesdropped enough in this house, and already the guilt is settling against his chest like a lead weight.  Again.

It's about two in the morning, he thinks;  probably a good time to thrash the bag.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Putting Tony to bed is never easy unless he's in dire straits, and that generally makes a good barometer for how hurt or sick he is. When he's frustrated and moody it means he's mildly inconvenienced but not in pain. When he starts cracking obnoxious jokes, it's because he's sick or hurt enough to be upset and wants to cheer himself up.  When he curls up in a silent ball and just wants to be left alone, that's the sign that something's really wrong.

Bruce doesn't know how to interpret it when Tony doesn't do any of those things, and just asks him to sit with him until he falls asleep, so he braces Tony's knee with pillows, helps him get comfortable, and then sits down. The mattress under him is body-heat warm, not from the man lying prone in it now, but the one who just left in an uncomfortable hurry. 

"Is Steve okay?" he asks.

"He's fine.  Got his world-view kicked around a little, but he'll deal with it."    Tony hitches one shoulder in a loose shrug.  "But then, maybe I did too, so we're even."

Bruce half-smiles.  "Sorry. I don't think I have any interesting universal truths to share to help it back up."

"Don't worry about it. One night in the gutter won't kill it. Thanks, by the way." 

"For what?" 

"Bandaging me up.  Fixing Steve. Coming to sit with me."   _Living here, letting me pretend you're mine, being my friend, being yourself._   "I don't take that for granted, y'know. At least I'm trying not to, I'm not always great at that."

"I know.  You're welcome."  

 "Cool."    And with that, Tony settles and closes his eyes, because if he says anything else he'll lose it and just blather everything at Bruce. He's learned the importance of having a few drinks and then spilling your guts to whoever will listen-- it's a release valve that has to get opened once in awhile and it's a mechanical necessity-- but he's not going to do it twice in one night.  

Unfortunately, that leaves Bruce to watch him fall asleep, occupying a spot of warmth that Steve left behind when he fled the room, breathing air that still smells very strongly of shame.

\--

The following morning is disturbingly Tony-less, because the only way to keep Tony in bed when he doesn't want to be there is to drug him, especially when he doesn't want to be there because he's in pain.  Bruce may not be able to write prescriptions, but he can mix up enough diphenhydramine to put a buffalo down.  

For Steve it means no morning argument, a phenomenon he didn't realize he would miss until it just plain didn't happen; for Bruce it means a very quiet, very empty lab, which he likes a lot less than he would have expected.  For both of them, it means an awkward, empty space where Tony really ought to be, and the unavoidable strangeness of being in someone else's house while they aren't really there.

Around nine, Steve realizes he's about to take two cups of coffee down to the lab out of habit, and this strikes him as a sign that he needs more air than he's getting.  He dumps them back into the coffee pot, and heads down there anyway.

"Bruce? Are you busy?"

He finds the other resident scientist sitting at the worktable, watching some kind of equalizer-looking thing and comparing it to a scrolling block of text and a spray of blue sphere-diagrams, all of which are floating in midair and responding to waves of Bruce's fingers.  It makes Steve smile despite himself, half-imagining The Sorcerer's Apprentice, although clearly Bruce is doing a much better job handling Tony's unattended magic than Mickey Mouse did with his master's.

"Hm? No, not really."   Bruce takes his glasses off, looks over at Steve.  "Did you need something, Captain?"

"I feel like I'm soaking up Tony's stir-crazy while he's passed out, thought I'd try to get out of the house for awhile.   Wanna come with?" 

Bruce looks at him, then back to his work, and then back to Steve. It's almost confused,  the way he tends to be when anyone but Tony is overtly nice to him, caught between suspicion and surprise.   "Yeah. I think I do.  Where are we going?"

"Somewhere besides here. Maybe we can go out for early lunch?  Tony'll probably feel a little better about being stuck home all day if we bring something back for him." 

"I... don't really know what he likes, besides coffee and brandy."  Bruce frowns a little, as if he really ought to know that.  "But New York pizza makes him sick to his stomach."

Steve approaches the worktable, looking at the graphs and meters as they hang in the air. He generally preferred the old-fashioned approach, but this felt familiar and friendly enough that he didn't mind so much.   "So let's try to find something new.  He likes stuff he hasn't tried before." 

That actually puts a smile on Bruce's face, and Steve decides he's done his good deed for the day.  "All right.  Does that mean we're taking the Bridgestone?"

"I'd love to, but don't know where Tony keeps the keys to his car collection."

"Neither do I.  But."   Bruce takes a few steps over toward the tool chest-- something of a misnomer, as the thing has an entire wall devoted to itself, as well as a number of drop-down service racks attached to the ceiling-- and rummages for a few things.  "From what I understand, that's never really stopped you."

He doesn't like to think of himself as being prone to that sort of fancy, but Bruce offering to hotwire his bike reminds Steve very strongly of the Howling Commandos, and where those memories are usually aching pits in his chest, today it's simply bittersweet.

\--

Tony's Bridgestone 350 GTR-- Steve's, now-- is a lightweight, Cleopatra-gold-and-chrome creature, with only a few performance upgrades and some custom detailing to mark her as being any different from any other of her kind.  But he's sure she's a lady, and something about her shape makes him think of whitetail deer; he doesn't feel at all bad about running his hands over her, now that he's not coveting her like something in a shop window.  

"Tony fell in love with this thing the day he saw it," Bruce mentions offhandedly as he goes fishing for her wires.  "I was really surprised he actually agreed to wager it, but I'm glad he did."

"Why's that?"  Steve watches from the garage wall.  If he wanted to, he could probably start the bike himself, but he's learned not to interrupt science people when they're doing science. 

"Because he would have driven himself nuts over whether to give it to you for your birthday."  He smiles over the top of the handlebars, that warm, sweet smile that he only seems to have whenever he's talking about Tony.  

It doesn't occur to Steve until the words leave Bruce's mouth, but, yes, actually. His birthday's only about a month away.  "...You think so?"

"Well, he'd already lost his mind over whether to give it to you for Christmas last year,"  Bruce responds easily.  "He didn't because he was afraid of being too flashy--"

"Tony Stark was afraid of giving a flashy Christmas present? You're kidding. The Stark Industries party practically shut down Rockefeller Center."

"I was surprised, too."  He chuckles.  "But I think he was afraid of coming on too strong, or making you think he was just flaunting his money or something. It was our first real holiday as a team."

"He gave me a penthouse."   Steve says it without expression, because it's hard to flash more money than it takes to build an entire high-rise apartment with the kind of amenities that come with Stark Tower, but really, it's hard not to be a little touched by it in retrospect, having heard from Tony himself that he likes to have his people close.  At the time it just seemed like an astounding gesture of opulent charity.

"That was really more of a present to himself."  Bruce outright laughs, shaking his head in affectionate exasperation, but it fades quickly, like it always does. And then it seems to sink a little lower, that cloying weariness resting suddenly heavier on him, his eyes locked on the machine in front of him.  "...He loves you, you know." 

Steve almost has to bite his tongue to stop himself from saying 'He loves you' on reflex.  "He's... I think love is probably a strong word, Bruce."

"I don't think it is. I can smell it on him after he talks to you."   He seems calm enough, he's not even measuring his breathing.  

"....You-- do you mean that literally?"  He blanches a little; Bruce occasionally says things like that, 'you can smell the crazy on him',  'I could scent you', but up til now it seemed like just another colloquialism. 

Bruce nods.  "It'd be more accurate to say the Hulk smells it, more than me, but the result is the same."

"Oh."  Steve frowns a little.  "And... you think Tony--"

"I'm pretty familiar with that pheremone; I'm around Tony when he's working, most days."  Bruce half-smiles.  "But that's not the problem. The problem is that you walk around reeking of shame whenever you're around him for very long."

"Sorry."  He shakes his head.  "I've had a lot to think about lately."  Of course Bruce would pick up on that.  The man practically eats negative emotions for breakfast. And lunch. And dinner.  

"You don't have to apologize, I'm-- I'm trying to tell you, you don't have to feel bad about whatever you're..."  Bruce swallows, worrying uncertainly at his lower lip.  "...Sorry. For a doctor, I'm not really very reassuring. I don't mean to get in your business."

"You do fine, Bruce."  Steve smiles, and means it.  "Things are just very different now than they were before, I'm still working through some of it.  I don't mean to stink up the place, though, I'm sorry if that's irritating."

"It isn't."   The bike roars to life and doctor stands, and despite the ever-present tension of the Hulk lingering under the surface and his personal uncertainties, Bruce has a way of being so weirdly, delicately tranquil.  "Lunch?"

"Yeah."  Steve mounts up without realizing, and then has the presence of mind to ask, "Have you ever--?"

Bruce chuckles lightly as he climbs up behind him onto the pillion, and links his arms around Steve's waist.  "It's fine, Captain, I can ride bitch."  

At any other time, Steve might express his surprise that Bruce uses that kind of language, but just this moment, he's a little more surprised at how pleasant it is to have Bruce leaning warm against his back.

 

\--

New York isn't really as different as it looks, there's just more of everything. Signs, lights, high-tech storefronts, and so much noise: people on cell phones, miles-long stretches of cars, endless music from every direction. More stress, more chaos; no wonder there are so many advertisements for pain relief medicines.  

And then, maybe even more frustrating, there's having to deal with traffic laws.  He doesn't know if there's more of them in this day and age, Steve never drove himself anywhere in his own time, but it's uniquely irritating to have to conform to an endless tangle of traffic lights and one-way streets and road construction, especially when you're accustomed to riding on empty dirt paths that roll across Germany like loose corset laces. 

It's not doing Bruce any favors either; midday heat and lunch-rush traffic, constant shouting, the occasional ambulance siren.  He doesn't say anything, but the way he tenses when Steve has to pull up alongside a police car gives his discomfort away: it's still the outside world, still a dangerous place where Bruce feels more hunted than welcome. Right around the time he can feel the doctor's heart pounding against his spine, Steve starts looking for a better way.

He catches a glimpse of a construction site, particularly some discarded girders laying propped up against a dumpster, just a few feet shy of the overpass.  "Hey, Bruce." 

"Yeah, Captain?" 

"You said you've had to fly with Tony before, right?"

"Twice, but only in the post-Hulk blackout, I've never actually been awa--"   He cuts off abruptly.  Bruce's fingers dig into the leather as he curls his fists into Steve's jacket, shoring tightly up against his back. Being the genius that he is, he doesn't need much prompting to put the pieces together.   "I'm hanging on. Go for it.  And remind me to tell you who Evil Knievel is later."

Steve grins, and hits the gas.  He's heard of red-light cameras and figures tomorrow he'll owe the city some money, but it's hard to care about that when you're jumping your hotwired motorcycle onto an empty stretch of highway:  no super-powers, no unfathomable technology, just pulling a crazy stunt the old fashioned way.

\--

The back roads into Fairfield County are winding and mostly empty, and once the city is far enough behind them, Bruce can feel the Hulk doing his equivalent of giving him a dirty look, rolling over, and going back to sleep.

He settles against Steve's back and takes a moment to appreciate the safety of it, because the things that make him feel really safe are few and far between.  His brain knows that SHIELD won't let Ross come after him, that the rest of the Avengers would tear new assholes into everything that stood between them and him if it came to that, but the part of him that lives by feeling is placated by this:  a fast vehicle, a close friend, a tight grip, a home to go back to.   The smell of sun beating down on worn, brown leather and graying asphalt, the sharpness of the wind, and further off, the soft, heavy scent of distant rain.  So rarely are safety and freedom ever so close to each other.

Bruce almost doesn't notice they've stopped until he feels Steve's hand on his forearm, gently rousing him from his half-hypnotized state. 

"Did you fall asleep back there?"  

"No, but I probably could have, it's a nice drive."  Bruce sits up, rubs his eyes, and fishes his glasses out of his blazer pocket.   "Where are we?"

"Branchfield, I think.  Thought this place looked good for lunch."  

They seem to have stopped in front of a little sandwich shop, painted up to look like a barn and decorated with black and white cow spots, once upon a time.  Now the barn is more pink than red, and the sign that once proclaimed it "Bessie's Diner" is yellowed with age.

They let themselves in; it's blissfully cool inside, noisy with an ambient buzz of aging coolers and air conditioners, and saturated with a potpourri-and-mothballs smell that suggests a little old lady spends a lot of time here.   It's far enough out of the way that the forty-something gentleman behind the counter has no idea who they are when they order a couple of sandwiches (turkey on whole wheat for Steve, genoa salami and ham on rye for Bruce), and they settle into a booth without any further fanfare.  It is beautifully without complication, something that neither of them would have been able to experience if Tony were in their company.

"So.. uh. Evil Knievel?"  Steve asks.  

"Hm? Oh."  Bruce smiles, and fishes out his cell phone.  He hates phones because they're traitors, but he's made his peace with them. This one is a Stark Tech smartphone (of which eight exist; one for each Avenger, one for Pepper, and one permanently enshrined to the late Phil Coulson) and has a direct link to the SHIELD satellite network: it, more than anything else, is a reassuring hand on his shoulder. If he could call Asgard on it, he'd wear it around his neck like a dog tag.   "Evil Knievel was a daredevil, he used to jump over things on motorcycles and rockets and such."

"Like what?"

"The Grand Canyon was the most famous one, I think."   He delights in Steve's confused, impressed, bewildered expression, and then moves to the opposite side of the booth to watch the video with him.   "Did you do a lot of that in the war?"

"Not like that I didn't."  Steve watches the video of the esteemed Mister Knievel launching himself over Snake River in fascination.  "I didn't really ride all that much, compared to all the walking we did.  I loved it, though, whenever I had the chance. It was something I could never have done before the Serum, I just didn't have the strength to hold a bike up. It was like running and jumping, all the athletic things; I couldn't do it before, so it was just amazing to be able to do it after."

Bruce nods, cues up another video, this one a tribute to all of Evil Knievel's greatest jumps.   "Must be nice." 

"I wouldn't trade it for the world."  He smiles, and watches it; the stunts are amazing, far beyond anything he would assume he himself could be capable of. And then he watches an equally amazing spill, where the man in the white jumpsuit is all but scattered on the ground, and a footnote in the video declares him the holder of the world record for 'most bones broken'.  It hits home, maybe a little more deeply than Steve would have expected; Bruce catches a faint whiff of that musty shame again.

"...Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."   Bruce takes a bite of his sandwich, pondering, half-expecting it to be about Tony. 

"They said your accident... it happened as part of an attempt to re-create the Serum. Is that true?"

Completely taken by surprise for the third time today, Bruce turns his attention to Steve again. "Ah..yeah, it was. Dr. Erskine was a genius, nobody really appreciated how much of one until decades after the fact.  Just about everyone's been trying to come up with a way to get... well, another you."   He shrugs.  "I feel better knowing they'll never do it."

"What makes you say that?" Steve frowns into his sandwich, and slides Bruce's phone back over to him.  "That's not to say I think they need-- more, of me, exactly, just... I had a lot of problems that the Serum cured, I was a very sickly kid. Wouldn't that help people, too, even if all the Serum's properties couldn't be replicated?"

"That's just it, Captain."  Bruce smiles, that soft, sheepish smile that he gets when he's talking about something he knows he shouldn't be proud of.   "The formula's already been recreated lots of times, but they're never going to find another Steve Rogers. Every experiment from now until doomsday will just make more things like... well."  He gestures lightly to himself. 

"You mean the Hulk," Steve says, more out of dislike of Bruce referring to himself as a 'thing' than any real desire to correct him.

"No. I mean me."  He shrugs.  "The Other Guy was always there, the gamma radiation just made it possible for him to take me over, make him more than a voice in my head.   I didn't care about the Serum, I just didn't want to lose my project over it." 

Steve blanches a little, because this isn't something he'd ever heard before; the exact nature of the Hulk is something easily summed up in a few words, but very difficult to truly understand without a lot of context. "... I see.  I.. um. I'm sorry, for my part in it.  Dr. Erskine told me that, that it takes what's inside a person and magnifies it, good becoming great, bad becoming worse.. it's the only part of his work I never hear anyone talk about, and it was the most important part there was." 

"It's just a matter of perspective, Captain," Bruce tells him, amused in that faintly bitter way of his.  "And it's the same for super-soldiers and high-tech armor:  you look at these things and see the potential for disaster, because you know what it takes to make it work.  They look at them and see potential for success, just because they've seen it work before.  You and Tony are a lot alike in that way: you make it look like anybody can be a hero."

"Anybody can, Bruce, if that's what they want to be." 

He's not prepared for the honest smile that spreads across Bruce's face, the open weariness around his eyes.  "The fact that you really believe that," he explains, without a touch of irony,  "is exactly why there will never be another Captain America."

The heat that signals a blush creeps up to the top of Steve's ears: it's another one of those warm feelings, only this one.. Bruce is directing that smile at _him_ and not _Tony_ and he can already feel it settling in the pit of his stomach.   "I...ah...  Thanks."

"...There's that shame again," Bruce says, and Steve feels like he's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar; it gets worse when he watches the doctor's face fall, like he just realized he's screwed up something important.  "I'm sorry. Did I say something wrong?"

"No.  No, Bruce, you're fine."  

"I think you're lying." 

"I'm not."

They spend a while eating in silence after that,  Steve trying hard to make his skin feel less like it's on fire, Bruce trying to figure out what just happened.  They finish their food;  Bruce orders a roast beef sandwich to bring back for Tony, and they make their way out to the parking lot without a word exchanged between them.

Just as Steve is about to mount up, Bruce's phone rings; he fishes it out of his pocket, smiles, and answers it.   "Good morning.  How's the knee? ... We're fine, Steve and I went for lunch...Connecticut, we just had to get out of the city for awhile.... Oh."

Steve watches Bruce's face go from 'happy to hear Tony's voice' to 'concerned' very quickly as he listens; he's quiet for a long while.

"... I see. Did you want to--? ... No, of course not-- Tony, I know. ...  It's okay.  Yes, really.  I promise it's fine. We're on our way back now, and we've got lunch for you.  Stay off that knee, okay? Okay."    He hangs up after a brief pause, as if he's making sure Tony hangs up first.

"Is Tony all right?" 

"Crisis of conscience," Bruce answers smoothly.  "He'll be fine."

"Does he have those a lot?" Steve leans forward to let the doctor climb up behind him;  the weight of Bruce's arms around his waist is warm and comfortable, maybe more than he'd readily admit to right away.  

"All the time."  Bruce tries not to sound too much like he's sighing, but it doesn't work very well.  "He's still getting used to having people around who actually care about what he does, outside of making him act the way they think he should or getting him to do what they want him to do; sometimes he doesn't know what's acceptable and what's not."

Steve offers a dry laugh. "You don't say." 

Bruce laughs with him, but shakes his head.  "It's a two-way street, Cap. Sometimes he feels like he's doing something wrong when he isn't, too. It seems like that gets around a lot, lately."

He can't tell for sure, but Steve thinks he can feel Bruce's grip get a little tighter on his waist as he settles in a little closer against his back.  Either way, the familiar warmth pools in his stomach, and just this once, he figures he can let himself enjoy it. 

 


	6. Chapter 6

As much as he might sometimes wish it would, Bruce's nose never lies:  he catches the scent of rolling stormclouds not long after they get onto the road, and before they make it across the state line, it's pouring.

It chases them back into the city and overtakes them by the time they make it back to the Tower, some hours later than they might have liked.  The elevator dings and releases Bruce and Steve into the common room, all dripping coats and squelching shoes. Naturally, Steve peels out of his brown leather jacket and comes out looking like a Calvin Klein model;  Bruce's slightly-graying curls sticking to his glasses have left him something of a sheepdog.

Tony might almost-- _almost_ \-- have greeted them with a sleepy, left-out pout, but when the two of them sheepishly approach his spot on the couch with the soggy, rained-on remains of a roast beef sandwich from a a little mom-and-pop deli in another state, he can't help it:  he bursts out laughing, and gets up to find them towels before they drip everywhere, despite protests that he shouldn't be walking on that knee.

The shuffle for dry clothes is a brief one; shoes and socks get abandoned on the balcony (because they aren't getting any more wet by being out there), jackets hung up over a leftover towel, while Steve and Bruce retire to their floors to change.

Bruce comes back down to the kitchen to find Tony sitting on the countertop, talking to the Hunan Pearl through JARVIS.  

"...and a large order of house fried rice, wonton soup-- and one of everything that has beef in it. Extra duck sauce.  You know the address."    And with that, Tony turns a delighted smile on Bruce.  "Welcome back.  Did you have fun? I feel like I missed a party."

"It was more of an adventure."  Bruce smiles.  His glasses are still a little foggy and his hair is still damp, leaving him charmingly rumpled in a purple Talk Nerdy To Me t-shirt.  "Sorry about your sandwich, though."

"It's the thought that counts."    Tony leans over to tug Bruce closer, not for anything more specific than just to reach and touch, one elbow draped loose around the other's waist.   The lights are dim, the late summer afternoon darkened by the storm.  

"You _did_ miss the part where Steve jumped the bike over some steel beams to skip traffic."

Tony's jaw nearly hits the countertop. " _Bullshit._ That's got to be at least a million traffic violations, reckless endangerment, being too awesome within city limits... I want proof, where's the video?"

"I was hanging on for dear life, forgive me if I'm not part of the YouTube generation."  Bruce snickers.  "I'd describe it in detail, but I had my face stuffed in the back of his coat.  Did I mention he only did it because the cops were making me nervous?"

Tony is about to launch himself into a tirade, probably a positive one, when Steve pads his way downstairs in his usual white T-shirt and brown track pants (a gift from Tony, because living in the future means not doing push-ups in slacks), a towel hanging loose around his neck.   "It wasn't that spectacular, I promise.  Bruce showed me Evil Knievel, it wasn't anywhere near what that guy did."

"Here's a tip, Steve:  'not quite as spectacular as Evil Knievel' is still _pretty damn spectacular_."  Tony has the good grace not to be too disgusted by how casually awesome Steve can be when he wants.  "Does that mean you took the Bridgestone? I don't think I ever gave you the keys..."

"You didn't."  Bruce smiles.  "We didn't know where you keep them and there was no chance in Hell of waking you up, so I MacGyver'd it."

"You hotwired my motorcycle."

"No, I hotwired _Steve's_ motorcycle."

"...I don't think I've ever been more attracted to you than I am at this very moment."   Tony stares at him as if he's seeing him in a new, sexier, improvised-science light.  

On anyone else, it would be silly, or stupid.  On anyone else, it would be impossible to take seriously. But Bruce Banner responds to this by looking over his shoulder, tapping his glasses just low enough to see over the tops of the frames, and tossing him an honest-to-God _flirtatious wink_.  He takes advantage of Tony's dumbstruck silence and smiles, pushing his glasses back up to their proper place.

Before Tony can respond, Steve clears his throat, his face bright pink with something that only Bruce can tell isn't actually embarrassment.  "I don't think I know MacGyver."

All humor is shoved aside with that statement, because to be ignorant of the ways of _MacGyver_ in the Stark-Banner household is a little like walking around colonial Salem with a sign saying "Ask Me About My Heresy".  Tony and Bruce bustle Steve to the couch, sit him down, and begin preparations for a time-honored ritual of the modern world:  the rainy-night 80's TV show marathon.

The Chinese food arrives just as JARVIS is finished cleaning up the sound on season one, and cartons get passed around (Bruce is a surprisingly graceful hand with chopsticks, Tony and Steve stick to the plastic forks).  Drinks follow suit, including a six pack of Clint's Old Rhode Island root beers, which Steve doesn't object to solely on the grounds that they'll be replaced before he gets back from Brazil, and so the three of them settle in as though they're on a very important mission.

"See, MacGyver is a secret agent with the Department of... something, some made-up government agency, it's got an X in it because X is the coolest letter," Tony explains around a mouthful of mongolian barbecue.

"And he saves the day by being resourceful and using whatever's around him at the time, and usually duct tape and a Swiss Army knife," Bruce finishes.  "He's an improvisational scientist."

Steve spears a piece of sweet and sour chicken on his fork, grinning in amusement.  He's always thought that putting Tony and Bruce in the same room knocks twenty years off of both of them, this is practically regression therapy.   "So, what, was this guy your childhood hero or something?"

"Absolutely.  This guy was the champion of nerds when I was growing up," Bruce says.  "Other kids had, you know.. real superheroes, from comic books and such, but we had MacGyver."

"Which is kind of ironic, if you think about it, because we're superheroes now, and we're hanging out with Captain America. See that, Bruce? Took about twenty-five years, but we're officially the coolest fifth graders _ever_." Tony puts in. 

Bruce agrees. "We may have crested 'rad', except we don't have mullets."

"Mullets? I'm assuming you don't mean the fish, here."  Steve looks between the two of them.

Bruce cracks up as Tony waves a hand and bleats, "Pause!", stopping the video on a shot of Richard Dean Anderson turning quickly to face the camera, swinging a fan of blond hair out behind him.  "That haircut, where it's short all over except in the back?  That is called a mullet. It's not the best example, though, hang on.  JARVIS? New window, Google image search the phrase _Epic Mullet_."

Next to the current monitor displaying the MacGuyver episode, another appears floating in midair and produces an image of a man leaning against a truck, nonchalantly displaying his business-in-the-front-party-in-the-back style.    "There we go," Tony says. " _That_ is a mullet for the ages."

Steve barely stops himself from blowing a mouthful of root beer into the air with his laughter and then looks to Bruce as if he expects Tony to be joking, but Bruce just shakes his head in utter solemnity.  "History regrets a lot of things about the 80's."

"Oh!"  Tony sat up.  "Has anyone told you Ronald Reagan was elected president in '81?"

Steve tips his head in confusion.  "Ronald Reagan? The _actor_?"

Bruce and Tony share a look between them, and Bruce is already thumbing through JARVIS' entertainment database when Tony says, " _Back to the Future_ , next."

 

\--

 

_Back to the Future_ makes for a fun hour and a half, because there's a lot to be said for showing a man from the 40's the glory of 80's special effects when he's sitting in a room full of technology more advanced than what appears in _Back to the Future II._   

When it's over, and it's generally agreed that even if they're having a night in, they're going to drown in empty cartons and bottles if they don't take a break to clear some of it,  Bruce notes there's a 'release date' option for organizing the titles in Tony's collection. The earliest ones go back to the '30s.

"Hey. You know what we could do, since we're watching movies anyway?"

"What's that?"  Tony has a permanent satisfied smile plastered on his face; there's not a bite of food left among the take-out, and for the first time since he's been here, Steve actually looks like he's full.   

"We could watch them in chronological order.  I dunno about you, but I never really watched very many of the classics growing up," he says, and points up at the screen.  "Could be a fun film history project."

Tony lights up accordingly. "Oh!  Hey, that's not bad-- you think that'd be more comfortable, Steve? It'd be new to all of us, that way." 

"I'd be comfortable enough either way. But if it means not having to watch you spoil everything when you get that goofy look on your face because you know there's a good part coming up, I'm in."  Steve laughs, and then gets Tony's wet dishrag in the face for his trouble.  

"Well, if we're doing a proper movie night, we need popcorn."  Tony goes digging into the pantry, and produces a very pretty, very tall canister of Golden Savannah Gourmet Popcorn, decked with gold foil and a general air of luxury.

"...Tony Stark eats popcorn? That seems so... _cheap_ , for you," Steve remarks, although he does admit that if Tony Stark wants popcorn, this obvious luxury popcorn is definitely the popcorn he'd eat.  

Bruce just smiles as he puts a few generous spoonfuls of organic sweet-cream butter into the microwave to melt it.  "It's a remarkably enduring tradition. Also this stuff isn't cheap, it's... I don't know _why_ it isn't cheap, but I don't think Tony buys anything that is."

"Hey, I have refined tastes, that doesn't mean I waste money; these come in the company Christmas baskets every year. And I know how to do popcorn up right."  Tony produces a second canister, this one labeled Vermont Cheese Powder and smelling, naturally, of sharp cheddar.  "Snack food technology has come a long way since your day, Cap, let us enlighten you."

Steve finds himself slightly reluctant; just the sound of popping kernels is an instant trigger for flashbacks to his early childhood during the Depression.  But somehow, he thinks the taste of popcorn with fresh butter and sea salt and a light dusting of white cheddar cheese is going to settle into his consciousness with a new set of memories.

They settle back on the couch with a big bowl of it, and Tony puts on _The Maltese Falcon._  Steve remembers seeing posters for the former, but had never managed to see it himself; Tony has a passing familiarity with it as part of Humphrey Bogard's career and Bruce, surprisingly, has read the Sam Spade novel it was based on.  

It's an enduring classic for a reason, and although the popcorn's gone within the first ten minutes, nobody dares get up to make more because they might miss something.  Bruce and Steve half-expect Tony to be bored to tears by a movie so ancient, and are surprised when he's got something in his eye as he hears Gutman profess he values the Falcon over the life of a man he loves as a son.  Steve can't really claim to be any better, because he tears up at Spade's affirmation that, when one's partner is killed, something must be _done_ about it.  Bruce doesn't judge, he just silently passes the tissues, and smiles to himself.  

The next in the playlist is _Flying Down to Rio,_ and Steve is transfixed.   It's hard not to be a little entranced by it, not just for the novelty of seeing chorus girls dancing on a biplane and the undeniable majesty of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but because he finds himself remembering the little details of the chorus girls he used to know himself.   He doesn't like to think of the dancing monkey days, because as far as he knows, it's a private shame of his that he ever wore tights and danced on stage.  Sure, every kid dreams of being a star, but he remembers it as an embarrassing waste of Dr. Erskine's death.

When the movie ends, he looks over to Bruce and Tony to ask what's next in the playlist, and finds they aren't paying attention to the screen anymore:  they're asleep.

Tony is settled firmly into the couch, empty popcorn bowl resting next to him, one foot propped up on the coffee table with a pillow under it to keep his knee level, one arm over Bruce's shoulders.   Bruce is slumped next to him, glasses slipped down his nose, forehead pressed against the side of Tony's neck, his arm lightly draped over Tony's waist.   They're peaceful in a way that Steve's never seen either of them, breathing in a slow, even rhythm, close and warm.

It's too good an opportunity, so Steve slips upstairs just long enough to bring a sketchbook and his charcoal pencils down from his room, and decides to do a bit of life drawing. 

He starts with the unruly fringe of Tony's hair, the flyaway locks that fall over his forehead and the curve of his ear;  the line of his jaw, interrupted by the angular cut of his beard. The muscle of his shoulder as it leads into the ridge of his collarbone and the fabric of his tank top, the shape of his elbow where it rests against Bruce's back.  He's all sharp angles and deep contrasts.

Bruce is softer all over, from the lush curls that Tony's fingers sink into like seafoam, to the fullness of his lips and the light scruff of his unshaven cheeks, his broad shoulders and chest, the little flame-licks of hair that peek up from the collar of his shirt.  The warm, round weight of his arm as he tucks it against Tony's waist, the wide span of his palm, the blunt strength of his fingers, even the round, silvery lenses of his glasses seem to achor them and balance out.

Steve takes the white chalk pencil and adds the light of the arc reactor to them, taking the differences in their shape and uniting them with it as though their silhouette is a cloud deserving of a silver lining.  The movie's been off for a while now, but he's still entranced.

Really, it's silly to deny it, for them to deny it, but it doesn't matter, because Steve has the truth right in front of him.  It's almost childish, and it may be expressed in a way that Steve doesn't truly understand; but they are both very jaded geniuses, treated coldly by life and finding a warmth in one another that almost salves the old wounds. They can't put stitches in scar tissue, but they can help each other forget the aches, and so in a very pure, sweet, simple way, they love each other. 

As Steve watches their shoulders rise and fall, he thinks he can admit to himself that he loves them both more for it.   And that's okay, he thinks; that can be enough. 

He closes the sketchbook and quietly puts his pencils away; it's late, and now that he's committed it to paper, he's a little afraid of eavesdropping.   He sets the book and the pencil box out of the way, stretches, and stands, preparing to return to his room-- but a hand on his arm stops him.

Bruce looks up at him over the tops of his glasses, his dark eyes drowsy but faintly questioning. He's only half-awake, really, and he hasn't moved except for the one hand curled lightly around Steve's forearm.  

Steve gives him a small, apologetic smile.  "Sorry," he murmurs softly. 

They exchange a look, one that Steve can't really parse;  the still waters of Bruce's personality run much, much deeper than anyone can really fathom.   But he lets his gaze slide up to Tony's sleeping face, then down the line of his own arm, to where his fingers meet Steve's skin, and back up to Steve's face.  Very softly, he responds, and then closes his eyes again, as if those words were the only reason he'd woken up at all.

Steve swallows once, and then, cautiously, as if he thinks the floor might collapse under him, he carefully returns to the couch and settles in on Tony's other side.  The cushions sink with his weight, prompting Tony to shift with it, but he doesn't wake up.  It's warm and peaceful, he can feel the hum of the arc reactor through Tony's skin, feel the faint brush of Bruce's breath across his own.  Suddenly, horrifyingly, Tony squirms next to him-- but only long enough to reach around his shoulders and pull him closer against his side, and then he's sighing contentedly and settling again.

The words echo in his head with the pounding of his pulse in his ears, until his heart slows down, and Bruce's words remain to lull him to sleep:

 

_Don't be sorry. Just stay._

_  
_


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter has been so slow in coming; been having some pretty awful health and work problems of late. orz your forgiveness plz

 

 

Tony slowly rouses from a restful sleep; it's too dark to be morning yet and really, he never sleeps for more than a few hours at a time anyway.

His first thought is that he's fallen asleep sitting up, and he'd like to stand up and pop his back, but this is quickly overridden by the fact that he has an arm around Bruce, which means he's not going anywhere anytime soon. He's very good at slipping out of the embrace of sleeping lovers, but the thought of leaving Bruce alone like that does not sit well with him.   Instead, he lazily combs his fingers through Bruce's disheveled curls, and prepares to enjoy a bit of peace and quiet on the couch.

Then he realizes his other arm is not around the rest of Bruce, because the rest of Bruce is not quite so big, and solid, and muscled. This is what prompts him to open his eyes and notice that, sleeping peacefully and tucked in close against his other side, washed in the blue glow of the arc reactor, is Steve.  More significant: although Bruce's arm is draped across Tony's waist, his hand is resting on Steve's.

Well.

Isn't _that_ interesting?

It's perfect in its way, the two of them asleep on his chest, their hands linked together. What had prompted that? Did it matter?  He could sit there and explain it to himself, how much sense it seemed to make, but.. maybe that's just his posessive tendencies talking.   He's so used to being able to have most things he wants, but the things he wants most-- the things he can't buy or build-- always seem to be just out of reach, and so easily lost.  Now he's got what he suddenly realizes is what he wants most, right in front of him, and he knows better than to think he'll be able to keep it if he doesn't act very, very carefully. He knew what to do with Bruce the second he'd laid eyes on him and they'd done very well together.  Steve had been more difficult, not wholly because of his being outside of his right time, but he was here, and it seemed like he'd been happy.  But both of them?   

No.  He knows they're not fragile, but this is something he can't rush into.  Diving headfirst and wholeheartedly into something because he knew it was what he wanted, oblivious to everything else? No. That had cost him Pepper for good, and God help him if he couldn't learn from that mistake.

He slips out from under the two of them with deft, practiced ease, leaving Bruce and Steve to cuddle against a throw pillow in his absence.   He has a lot of thinking to do, and he knows he's not going to get any of it done with them in his lap.

Tony thinks of going to the lab, but then he sees his keys hanging up, and decides he needs a little more wind in his hair today.

 

\--

 

Bruce comes around suddenly. His nightmares are rarely very concrete things anymore, just nameless bouts of darkness and dread that launch him from deep sleep to sudden alertness.  It's not so bad today. It's just shy of dawn; the light gray of the outside is just starting to fill the room.

He sits up slowly and realizes firstly that Tony is gone, and secondly, that he and Steve were sharing a pillow until just a second ago.   He looks peaceful, and there's no lingering smell of fear or shame on him;  only a clear, golden contentment. He must be dreaming of something pleasant, Bruce figures.  Tony's scent is still clinging to the upholstery, though, and there's something potent  and heavy in it; he can't have left very long ago, and it doesn't seem like he was happy about it when he did.

The scents never really click as having any one particular quality over another, he couldn't replicate the scent of Tony's affection or Steve's shame chemically.  It's just a signal that the Hulk picks up and instantly reacts to, some deeper, animal instinct.   But this smell is new and he can't translate it, and that worries him: Bruce thought he knew all of Tony's scents, even the subtler ones.  This one is distinct and unfamiliar, but it has that negative tang of shame or guilt or regret,  and he doesn't like that at all.

Bruce offers Steve a silent apology as he slips out of the loose grasp the other man has on his wrist, and lightly adjusts the pillow they've been sharing.  If he cleans up, puts away the mess left behind by a good night, it's easier to let the moment pass.  So he does, and leaves the art supplies neatly stacked on the table for Steve to pick up later, though he wonders when Steve had even gotten them out.

Like most things, it was nice while it lasted, and nice things never really last.

He adjusts his glasses and disappears into the kitchen to fix coffee before he heads down into the lab.  He sees the empty hook where Tony's keys usually are and realizes he won't be down there, and accepts that easily, too.

 

\--

 

Steve wakes up on the couch, the thin light of just-after-dawn falling in from the windows.  Everything's been cleaned up, except for his art supplies, and from the smell in the kitchen, there's fresh coffee on.  

He's alone, and the space next to him is cold.

He figures if he goes down to the lab, he'll find Tony and Bruce there, but there's a weird ache in his chest.  He's a soldier, he's been on long marches, nodded off on the shoulders of the other guys when it was someone else's turn to keep watch; waking up alone when he didn't fall asleep that way tended to mean something had gone wrong.   This has more finality to it, as if someone had scrubbed the previous night off the calendar.  Or, he thinks, out of their consciousness. 

It makes sense. He'd overstepped. He'd been intruding on them again.  Maybe he'd only imagined that Bruce had invited him to stay, or maybe Bruce had only been mumbling in his sleep.  Either way he should have known better than to mess with perfection. 

He could go down to the lab and apologize, but the room suggests that whoever scoured it wanted it gone.  He can respect that.  So he puts it aside; they have their work to drown themselves in. Steve has his own. 

Today, he has to find some missing Stark Industries weapons, so he pours himself some coffee and fixes himself some toast and eggs, and decides how best to go about it.

He looks up at the ceiling, because he's never sure where he's supposed to direct his eye contact when he talks to the house AI.  It's always awkward, but it's either ask JARVIS, or brave the awkwardness of going into the lab.  "Excuse me, JARVIS? Are you busy?"

"No, Captain Rogers; what can I do for you?"  The pleasant, gently-English accent resounds in the empty kitchen, immediately attentive.

"I need to find an unauthorized holder of Stark Industries weapons. Does Tony keep track of the ones he knows about?"

"All known caches of Stark Industries weapons have been accounted for and disposed of, but the locations and catalogues are on file."

"Then, I'm going to need your help. I need those files, and any shipping manifests from every department of Stark Industries, starting with the date the weapons manufacturing division was shut down.  And an up-to-date map of.. um. The world." 

"Where shall I display them, Captain?"

Oh.  Well. Asking for a paper copy wouldn't be very useful, would it? And it'd probably take up an awful lot of paper, and time.  "Can you put them in the living room, like the movies?"

"Of course."   The living room all but blooms in a sudden wash of glowing blue light: documents and documents and documents, and a large, very high-resolution Mercator projection that takes up most of the wall.   

"Thank you, JARVIS."

If he didn't know better, he'd think he caught a surprised pause in the AI's voice.  "You're most welcome, Captain."

 

\--

 

Bruce has his own workspace, access to everything he could ever possibly need.  He's only been officially employed by Stark Industries for a few months and he's already made more money than he ever did at any other job he's had, mainly because he doesn't spend a dime on his own living expenses.  It's safe, because anyone who would dare test itself against SHIELD to get the Hulk would be stupid to try it against the legal and financial might of Stark Industries, much less the actual presence of Iron Man and Captain America.  Sometimes it strikes Bruce as being very funny that he spent so much time running and hiding, only to find something like peace and security in one of the biggest, brightest buildings in one of the biggest, brightest cities in the world.

But Tony hasn't been in the lab for two days in a row, and this time Bruce suspects it's his own fault.  There's no chatter or distractions, no classic metal (when did it become _classic_ metal?) on the sound system, not even any arguments with JARVIS.  It's even more uncomfortable than it was yesterday, except he doubts Steve is going to come save him from the silence today and he doesn't think he quite has the nerve to go upstairs and act like there isn't something weird happening here.

Steve and Tony love each other, and that doesn't surprise Bruce at all, even if neither one of them seems to want to admit it.  The pessimist in him thinks it's really only going to be a matter of time before Tony comes to realize it and destroys himself with grief over it: Steve represents a conceptual ideal that Tony knows he can't reach, the man who got it right the first time, who still manages to be himself without apology or compromise even after sudden scientific advancement has changed his life.

Bruce knows exactly how that is, how addictive that can be, because that's exactly what he sees in Tony. He'd like to be upset, he'd like to be jealous, he'd even like to be Hulking-out angry and it surprises him that he isn't. But he sympathizes. He gets it. And he can't argue.  Whatever they decided, he'd abide by it;  Peru would be nice this time of year, if they needed time alone.

He gives up trying to work on anything when Dummy rolls up to him, offering a bottle of water that it doesn't seem to know is empty and was probably collecting dust, wedged under something, up until Dummy found it.   _Is this yours? Do you want it? I brought it for you._

"Um. That's very nice, thank you.  Recyclables, Dummy."  Bruce rubs his forehead, watching Dummy roll away and awkwardly try to put the bottle in the appropriate receptacle.  Bless its loopy little heart, it tried. 

He takes another look at his displays, all coded with his Stark Industries employee ID number. It gives him a weird, strangely satisfying hope, watching Tony's silly, clumsy robot making a second attempt at basic janitorial skills in the reflection behind him.  Tony didn't care how good or bad or useful or frustrating it was: he kept the things he loved, as long as they wanted to be kept. Maybe there'd be hope for him, after all.

And if not.. there'd always be work.  He takes a minute to stretch, focus on his breathing, get his head back in the game.  Things would be clearer as long as he had work to do, and as long as he still had that ID number, there'd be work. 

 

\--

 

Escape, whether one finds it in the bottom of a test tube, or the top of a speedometer, or the middle of a map of Asia, is a powerful and fleeting drug.  Its seductive allure isn't in the pleasure of a high, it's the excuse; it's being able to say I was working, I was being productive, I was busy. 

But it's a drug, and eventually, the crash has to follow.

They're all used to having to forego certain basic necessities, and so it doesn't especially bother or surprise anyone that the kitchen goes unused for most of the day.  

 

\--

 

Around ten that evening, Tony comes home, and finds two things wrong:  one, the coffee pot only has about a cup left in it, and it's practically day-old sludge, and two, the living room is spraying blue light from every orifice.  

He saunters in, half-expecting to find Bruce and being much more surprised to find Steve,  handling thirty or forty different holographic projections like a pro, mumbling to himself between friendly, polite requests to JARVIS. 

"All right, and these are all accounted for?  Cross-check against all documents: every serial number ending in 52, 53, 57, 61, and 70."   Steve waits until various spots of yellow appear in his blue jungle, and smiles.  "Thank you.  New window: total weight and volume of all freight shipments listed with highlighted passages." 

Another blue screen pops up and lists them; JARVIS remarks,  "I have discovered one error, Captain."

"Yeah? What's that?"

The new list highlights one out-of-place number among the volume listings, and Steve observes it, grinning.  "Excellent, thank you.  Can you give me the itinerary for that shipment? Just pin it on the map, every stop you know of-- yellow, for these ones, please. Thank you."

A line of yellow dots appear on the Mercator projection, running from a Stark Industries manufacturing plant in Maine, across the Atlantic, several ports in Europe, and finally ending somewhere in the Middle East, where it feeds seamlessly into a collection of red lines that spread in every direction like a bloody snowflake, and then one heavy, solid black line leading to a single black dot just inside the northeast border of Pakistan. 

"...Yep, that's what I thought."  Steve looks pleased with himself.  He taps the black dot.  "I need everything you can find on this location, JARVIS.  Maps, demographics, annual rainfall, average temperature, whatever you've got."

"This information may take some time to compile. Shall I alert you when the analysis is complete?" 

"Yes, please. You've done a really great job so far, JARVIS, thank you."

"You're most welcome, Captain Rogers."

It's not until Steve, having finally decided that he just can't put off dinner any longer, goes to turn around and head in to get something to eat and runs smack into him that he even realizes Tony's in the room.  For just an instant, he's too happy to see him to remember to be awkward, but it   passes. "Oh! Hey, you're-- did you go out?"

Tony nods, half-amused, half thoughtful.  "Yeah. I needed some air.  I see you and JARVIS are getting along."

"Yeah, he's great."  Steve beams; most technology in the modern age is still alien and weird, but that just makes it slightly more satisfying when he figures it out.  "I think I'm on to something, too. Come take a look?"

Steve leads him over to the map and its colorful network of delineated routes.  "These are all your shipping routes since your weapons production was shut down, and this--"  He gestures to the big black dot,  "--is practically the Bermuda Triangle.  There's a system of repeating serial numbers that goes through this location-- the manifests say they're for a standing order of medical supplies and auto parts, but the freight listings are all over the place-- because there's a munitions depot there under USMC control, and then stop there."

Tony nods, not especially liking where this is going.  "But they're disappearing."

"Better. The munitions depot doesn't exist, and it hasn't since the '80s.  According to this--"  He reaches and touch-drags a document window over towards Tony, "--it was destroyed in a cyclone. Stark Industries funded its reconstruction a few years later under a subsidary company, according to this--" Another document, this time an accounting spreadsheet, "--but it was either never restored to the Marines, or never built at all.  That location still exists on paper and the weapons division was still shipping to it until a few years ago, but there's nothing out there on any map I can find. JARVIS is still compiling for me, but I'll eat my cowl if he doesn't find anything."

Tony scowls, scanning over all the windows and soaking up the information like a sponge.  It was good work, on both sides; all coded across different departments.  Only someone willing to go in, retrieve the files one at a time, and do the investigations themselves would ever have found any of it, let alone pieced it together.  Really, it was as if whoever had arranged it had put this little operation specifically in the security system's blind spots.  "...That had to be Stane, the time frame's right." 

"Who?"

"...He tried to kill me. The rest isn't important.  The point is, that's good work. Maybe I should hire you on as a security officer, sometime."  Tony looks over the glowing blue mess, smiling, and pretending that having Bruce and Steve both working for him doesn't appeal to the shallower of his sensibilities. He hasn't learned to organize yet, but it's an admirable leap in his apparent understanding of modern technology, and it's a good change of subject.  "You can keep all this stuff neat if you scatter it," he says, and with a few gestures, scoops them up into a neat stack and then sprays them out into the air again. 

"It was already organized," Steve protests, and immediately begins pushing the individual windows gently back into place, exactly where they were.  "It's okay, I know where it all goes. Photographic memory."  He can feel Tony staring at him, but he keeps himself focused for the moment.  Accounts, shipping manifests, maps on top of that.  "How was your day? I didn't hear you leave."

"You were still asleep. Last time I saw you, you and Bruce were snoring into the same pillow." Tony answers smoothly. God bless literal truths. "But it was fine, I got some work done."

"And you're just now getting home?"  Steve's lips curve in a slight frown, one that Tony will later recognize as the this-could-be-bad face.  

"Yeah, why? What's wrong?"

"I haven't seen Bruce at all today, he was gone when I woke up."  

The color drains out of Tony's face.  The minute the words leave his mouth, Steve regrets saying 'gone' in conjuction with Bruce, but by then it's too late; Tony's already making a beeline for the stairs.

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick heads up: if you haven't read Stopgap (http://archiveofourown.org/works/458546), now might be a good time. It's not strictly necessary, but it definitely helps. 
> 
> Also, thank you to everyone who wished me well for my health issues; it made for fantastic inspiration.

 

 

 

Tony's always known that Bruce is patiently waiting for his life to fall apart again, and it makes Tony work twice as hard at keeping it all in one piece. Bruce isn't delicate, but the Hulk eats up almost all the fight he's got in him: if it ever got into his head that Tony was going to turn him away, he'd accept it, no questions, no arguments. He'd disappear without a word, and he'd do it with melancholy grace, as if he'd been waiting for that day all along. Because he _has_ been.

But there he is.

He's sitting there watching a scrolling display of some gamma-radiation related thing, minding his own perfectly legitimate business.  The stereo's playing one of his stupid Peruvian pan-flute band tracks, and the son of a bitch is _whistling_.

He doesn't look up until Tony breaches his peripheral vision, and then he turns, and smiles, and doesn't have enough time to say hello before he finds himself with Tony's fists clenched in his shirtsleeves. He just stands there, eyes slightly downcast, looking over Bruce's body as if he was so focused on just getting ahold of him that he forgot to decide what to do with him once he did.  

"Tony--? Are you okay?"   Bruce lifts a hand just enough to make the gesture to shut the music off; the cheery panpipes fade, and leave them in a silence only broken by Tony's somewhat tightened breath.

Tony answers him with both hands sealed against the sides of Bruce's neck, and sighs as he drops his own forehead against his.  "I'm fine.  Don't leave." 

"I'm not going anywhere."  Bruce smiles that stupid _were-you-worried?_ smile, his own hands coming up to rest on Tony's elbows, always gentle, always careful.  "Did something happen?"

"No. Well, yes."   Tony takes a deep breath, satisfied with this for the moment, and turns to take a seat on Bruce's worktable.   "I'm really sick of dancing around this. We have a problem."

Bruce just looks at him briefly before going back to his work, nonchalant in a rehearsed sort of way.  "What needs solving, here?"

"Steve does. And you do. And I do.   _We_ do, Bruce."  Tony looks at his hands as he talks, fidgeting. "... He came to me the other day, wanting to know if our thing we have going, if it's just some kind of experiment, because he really likes what he sees in what we have.   I could just _see_ his precious little all-American heart breaking, it was like he was asking me if Santa wasn't real." 

"That's a little disturbing, but I don't see how his opinion needs correcting; he's happy for us. Great."   Bruce slips his glasses off, refocusing on Tony as he talks.  "What did you tell him?"

"I told him... I told him it started like that, but it isn't, of course it isn't. I told him I might be in love with you.  Which is true, by the way."   He's too fed up with arguing with himself over it to try to hide it; there's nothing but fatigue in his voice. There's not even any alcohol.  "Don't get me wrong, I love what we have, I wouldn't trade it for the world, but I've been waiting for you to say it first because I needed it to be something you chose for yourself.  And now I'm starting to think I've been really selfish about it, because it was what I needed."  He smiles, but it's dismal at best.   "And what I like most is focusing on what _you_ need. I don't know if you need.... _this_ , exactly, but I'm starting to think everybody needs the truth."

Bruce nods, slowly, as he lets this sink in.  Maybe it wasn't the work that was making Tony give off that particular scent, after all.  He reminds himself to keep it cool, keep it calm, because his heart rate doesn't care if it's excitement or fear or anger anymore.   "...And this has what to do with Steve?"

"I love him, too."  Tony scrubs the heels of his hands against his forehead til the skin burns, and then drops them in his lap.  "Which is such a shit thing to say at a time like this, but... truth, and you asked."

"You're saying that like I didn't know."  The doctor can't help a light laugh.  "You reek of it whenever he's around, ever since he moved in."

"And it doesn't bother you?"  

"Most things don't, Tony, I've worked hard on that. Honestly, it'd bother me less if it didn't bother you so much."  Bruce admits.  "You and Steve are very alike in some ways, and diametrically opposed in others.  I'd be more surprised if you _weren't_ attracted to him, even if you weren't into men. You're magnets.  And to be honest..."  His cheeks fade into a lovely, dusky pink.  "...I don't think he feels that differently. Or he wouldn't, if he'd let himself think about it."

"...What?"

"He stinks of shame whenever he walks away from you.  I don't think he's conscious of it, not really, but it's in the little things."  Bruce thinks back a little, cataloging.  "He thinks of you constantly. It was his idea to go out yesterday, and to bring you back dinner to make you feel better about being laid up. He eats more, since you started-- um, giving me seconds from your plate at breakfast.  And I think that's why he looks out for me like he does; for your sake, not mine."  That blush gets a little darker; it's one of those little dominant touches of Tony's that are  always weird, but flattering, in that unique, inexplicable way. "And for what it's worth? He loves your bike."

"It's _his_ bike."

"You gave it to him." 

"He won it off me in a bet."

"I told him you wanted to give it to him for Christmas. And in his mind.. I think that counts."

Tony doesn't have an argument for that, and just stares at his hands, surprised that he really hadn't noticed any of this.  But then, he wasn't there for some of it.  

"And more than that."  Bruce sighs softly, because it's been weighing on his mind, too.  "He relaxes around you. He doesn't stay in the gym all day beating up bags anymore; he plays, he cracks jokes, he sits and watches movies and... and falls asleep on your shoulder because I asked him to."

"You _asked_ him to?"  Tony stares.  

"...He hates leaving us. He apologizes like he thinks he shouldn't be in the same room, but he hates it, it's foul on him.  I liked having him there and I didn't want him to leave, so I told him to stay. I'm sorry if it was uncomfortable. And I'm sorry if that's what made you leave early this morning."  Bruce frowns, more at himself than anything else.  "It just..."

"It just _fit_."  Tony finishes the thought.  "Yeah. I thought so, too.  You don't even know, Bruce. I wake up. It's still dark, and there's fucking popcorn just all over my lap, and you're right here--"  He pats a spot just under his collarbone on his right, and then the other side, on his shoulder, "--and he's right there, and you're both dead asleep, and you're almost fucking _holding hands_.  I mean, I think back to it and it's so Hallmark I want to rub the couch down with some pancakes to soak up all the _sap_ that must be left in it, but ... it's like Steve said: for just that minute, it meant everything to me." 

He stands up, and paces around the room, sneakers making little rubber-sole taps on the floor.  Somehow, it's louder, offset by Tony's voice.   "And then all I could think about was how bad I'd fuck it up!  In my head, it works, it fits so perfectly, all the pieces just-- they just fall into place, they click, they _work_.  But how things are in my head aren't always how they really are, not with people. I know I was being a selfish dick about it, because-- I wanted to keep you. And him. I still do."   

"You're not being a selfish dick, you're just new to altruism as a self-interested practice."   Bruce reaches a hand out to catch Tony in his manic orbit, and guide him back to the La Grange point his workstation represents in Tony's little science universe: easy to miss, but always there, usually quietly collecting all the important stuff Tony's usually shedding in his mania.   "It's hard to argue with that.  I don't know if Steve's the kind of person who--"

"He is."  Tony interrupts with a drop of repressed glee in his voice.  "He's a soldier, isn't he?"

"That's his professional life; he wanted it so he could join the war effort, Tony, not to--"

"That doesn't matter: what matters is, he _wanted_ it.   SHIELD gives him orders and puts him in a fight to save the world and he kind of needs that, that's his thing, but we're the ones who--"  The manic smile drops off his face, his voice tapering down to a solemn, dawning murmur.  "We're the ones who actually _need_ him.  We're the ones who _care about_ him.  Did you ever see his old apartment? The gym they put him in?" 

"No. Why?" Bruce guides them back to sit down on the worktable like it's a park bench.

"It was a shoebox, Bruce. It was all horrible wallpaper-- _yellow wallpaper_ , Bruce, who the Hell let that slip?-- these antiques, most of them weren't even real. Trying to make him "comfortable".  I wanted to punch Fury in the neck. You ever see a kid catch a frog in a jar? They put sticks and leaves and rocks in it to make it "comfortable" while it _starves to death_." 

Bruce remembers Steve moving in: he'd been fidgety and uncomfortable, carrying his one duffle bag, as Tony all but shoved him out of the elevator and into his floor of the Tower.  Pepper's influence was obvious in the form of rich blues and warm, savory browns, accented in silver and gold and a commanding view of the Manhattan skyline;  modern and pulling no punches on how very much the future it was, but obviously constructed in respect for his rank and with every consideration for his comfort.  In retrospect, it may have been a little intense-- a lot intense-- for a guy who'd grown up in a shabby Brooklyn tenement, and probably the reason Tony had agonized over whether or not to give him the Bridgestone for Christmas.  

Tony hadn't seemed to understand why Steve wasn't happy living on the grace of his generosity, just that he wasn't happy, and he tried to salve it by anonymously showering Steve in little gifts: clothes that weren't designed before Beach Blanket Bingo came out, endless rolls of KT tape, lots of books. The magnetic-mounted punching bags, ever a work-in-progress, had seemed to be the happy medium.

When Steve had asked him about that particular charitable idiosyncrasy, Bruce had explained it as Tony being his unique flavor of awkward: 

_"He doesn't know how to tell you what he's trying to say, in a way that he thinks will make you believe him."_

_"What_ is _he trying to say?"_

_"That you don't have to do anything special to deserve being here; he just wants you to be near him. He's been saying the same thing to me with blueberries for months."_

It makes perfect sense. It was just... Tony. Himself. His wants and wishes, being quietly transparent under a layer of pomp and flash.  If Bruce lets himself linger on it he'll trace it back to a lonely childhood, having to be better than the best to be worthy of any attention at all and rarely being satisfied with the results.  He just kept at it, being better and better until all those fireworks were so impossible to ignore that he could fold any sentiment he wanted into it, and no one would know the difference. 

No. It makes sense.  Horrifying, obvious, why-didn't-I-see-it-before sense.

"...You should be telling him this, Tony,"  Bruce says, and shyly reaches to clasp his hand lightly around Tony's wrist.  "Don't cook him dinner. Don't bring him any presents. If you want... if you want to have him, like you have me--"

"Bruce, I don't--"

"You do."  He smiles, and turns slightly pink.  "If you want him that way, you just have to go to him and say so. I don't know what he'll say, but he'll listen if you talk.  Maybe he does need it spelled out, but he doesn't need it in lights and music and caviar. That's not him."

Tony can't bring himself to even look up, watching the places on his skin where those warm, square fingertips are resting.  He's wrong to do this to Bruce. He knows that. This is exactly what he was afraid of doing the whole ride home; this is the part where Bruce gives him his blessing and disappears. In his head, this scene ends with him coming down to an empty lab and Bruce's phone sitting, turned off, on his worktable.  "I don't like it when you give me advice on the best way to dump you," he murmurs.

Bruce leans close, lets his forehead knock gently against Tony's temple, just to be close and quiet when he talks.  "I'm not. I _swear_ I'm not.  I'm telling you to be straightforward with him like you are with me, because if that's what he wants-- like it's what I want, what I _still want_ \--  you don't need the the glitz.  You're enough on your own."

Tony's shoulders sag like someone cut his strings, feeling all the nervous tension he's been sitting on just slide away; it's a release Bruce knows, letting himself have some slack in the leash he's tied himself up with.   He closes his eyes.  "...What's that going to mean for you?"

"I don't know."  Bruce hitches one arm in a light shrug, smiling.  "There's stranger things out there, right? It's not like it is between the two of you, but I like Steve.   He's a consummate soldier, and there was a time that it made me incredibly nervous, I'll be honest."  He shakes his head, dismissing the frown he knows is on Tony's face already,  "But that was a while ago; it's different, now.  So don't worry about me; I'll feel better when he stops smelling like guilt and you stop looking at me like that.  I.. I love you too, and  I'm not leaving you unless you want me to go, and even then, I'll keep my phone."

Tony looks at him expectantly, questioningly.

Bruce laughs.  "And I promise, I won't turn it off."

Tony nods approvingly, and rewards him with a slow, lingering kiss and a quick gesture to turn his stupid music back on.

 

\--

 

Steve half-debates going downstairs to check on Tony, but when he doesn't come back up and JARVIS doesn't sound any alarms, he figures he might as well get back to work.  They could be doing... that, again.  And he could forgive himself for accidentally walking in on them once, he isn't going to make a confirmed pervert of himself like that. 

He's just about to head back to the fridge to investigate options for late-night dinner when JARVIS makes the robotic equivalent of clearing his throat for attention. He dings.

"Captain, I have recovered a red-flag article. Shall I display it for you now?"

"Red-flag article? Yes, please. Thank you."  Steve scowls, and his stomach won't be put off so easily, so he scans the kitchen for something quick and edible that he can eat while reading. His eyes land on a bakery carton on top of the fridge: a chocolate cupcake with ridiculously colorful icing, and then it becomes a very brief battle of wills between "convenient, delicious snack about to go stale" versus "eating chocolate for dinner".  It's a short conflict, and Steve walks back to the living room with more than half of it in his mouth.

When he gets there, JARVIS has displayed a new window, this one bordered in angry red rather than thoughtful blue.    He reads it, frowns, and doesn't quite grasp the significance, so he finishes the cupcake so as not to talk with his mouth full, and then asks a question with a direct simplicity that can only come from a delicately balanced mix of hapless innocence and purity of purpose.  

"JARVIS, What can you tell me about these people-- the Ten Rings?"

Steve watches the room suddenly flood with angry red, as if the very name was making the walls bleed, and his eyes widen.  The first item to pop up is a video window.   He sits down.

It's short, and brutal.  Tony in the video is slightly younger, less in shape, his chest leaking wires attached to something he can't identify where his arc reactor ought to be.  He's been savaged, left filthy and bleeding.  When they tear the bag off of his face, he looks dazed and sick, unable to focus.  Steve flashes back to Bucky, strapped to a table and reciting his number; he almost retches onto the carpet.

The man holding the gun to Tony's head starts speaking and it gives Steve something to focus on; he can't understand the words but the intent seems obvious enough.  He's heard about this, that Tony had once been kidnapped and that's how he got the shrapnel in his heart and how Iron Man was born, but this is different.  This is uglier than they made it sound, uglier than he remembered: he's seen torture and capture, but those were soldiers.  This is Tony-- a different Tony, the one who did all the things that Steve's Tony is trying to make up for-- but he's so painfully _civilian_ , so out of his element.  

But the worst part is those eyes.  They're too sluggish to be as frantic as they want to be, and Steve knows that expression so perfectly-- it's the face Tony makes when he's desperately trying to think his way out, digging in his heels against what he probably has no idea is coming. It's the face he makes when he's deciding exactly what to do next, and the pain-dulled fear in his eyes is making it hard. 

It ends, and he taps the corner of the window to shut it off.  He'll be seeing that in his nightmares tonight, he doesn't need to watch it again. Photographic memory has its drawbacks.

"They kidnapped Tony," he says.

"Yes, Captain."  JARVIS answers, although it wasn't a question.

"How did these articles come up?"  Steve gets his bearings again. That happened long before he and Tony had ever met, it's over, Tony's fine. He can worry about that later.   "Where did you find them?"

JARVIS wordlessly presents the map and a number of marked red dots near the big black one, and a handful of newspaper articles written in a language Steve can't read.  "The Ten Rings is a large operation; several of their campaigns have taken place in the area designated by the search."

"What are the odds that any weapons caches there might be in that area belong to them?"

"It is very probable, Captain.  Shall I contact SHIELD?" 

Steve reaches for the far end of his collection of red-flagged articles, and mimics Tony's sweeping gesture to gather them into a neat stack and then dismiss them en masse.  "No. This isn't for them.  We'll make the report to them after we've wiped it off the face of the Earth.  If you find anything else like this.. can you save it for me, for tomorrow?"

"Of course, Captain."

"Thank you."  He swallows.  "And... if you can avoid it, don't tell Tony or Bruce.  Bruce might Hulk out and Tony...this is supposed to be fun for him. I don't want to ruin that."

JARVIS pauses for a noticeably long while; as an artificial intelligence, he's a technological marvel.  Computers supposedly don't handle abstract concepts very well, but Tony programmed JARVIS to respond to his needs, to his words, to his best interests.  And Tony very much likes his fun, and Captain Rogers' security clearance is very, very high.

"I will, Captain."

Steve smiles, relieved.  "Thanks, JARVIS, you've been a huge help. I think... I think I'm done for tonight, though.   Do you need a break from running your analysis?"   

He almost sounds amused.  "No, Captain; I shall continue until it is complete. I estimate the results shall be available in approximately fourteen hours and fifty-one minutes."

"Good man."  He stretches.  "Goodnight, JARVIS; thanks again."

The lights dim to nothing as JARVIS powers down the red-flag projections, saving them to the corner of the private server that's been allocated to Steve's personal use.  He stores it to a folder, which he then sets as 'hidden', and erases all other evidence of its existence. The Mercator projections and the routes stay clearly visible and available to all, in their own, separate folders. Within seconds, the room is as dark as if Steve had never been here at all.   

"You're most welcome, Captain Rogers."

Steve takes himself upstairs to bed, firmly trying to put what he's seen out of his mind, not understanding the magnitude of what he's proven: JARVIS is willing to keep a secret from Tony Stark because Steve Rogers is the one who asked him to do so.  Neither of them will ever realize the gravity of it, because Tony will never know, and Steve trusts JARVIS completely.

 

\--

 

Steve wakes up the next morning after a fitful sleep, nightmares full of blood and shrapnel and strange machines blotting at him vaguely like leopard spots across his consciousness.  When he finally gets himself out of bed, the sky is just cresting into blue, and there's a beautiful day outside.  

It helps.  The fifty push-ups help, too. 

Bruce is filling a second pan with something yellow and vegetabley when he makes it to the kitchen; he waves lightly with a spatula, smiling.  He's got his glasses on, but otherwise, he looks well-slept and slightly rumpled in his T-shirt and sleep pants.  Then again, he always looks slightly rumpled; maybe it's the well-slept part that seems slightly out of place.

"You're up-- wait, are you up early, or late?" Steve asks.  "Is Tony still asleep?

"Early.  I actually managed to get to sleep at a decent hour last night. And no, he's not, he's downstairs. Dummy's stuck in the recycling bin again."    There is, upon closer inspection, an awful lot of food happening here.  Sausage, bacon, a couple of stacks of pancakes, cereal. Naturally, a fresh pot of coffee. And of course it all looks delicious.  It's best when Bruce cooks; it turns out there's a lot of chemistry that goes into food, and he's used to having much less elaborate kitchens than this one, but he never makes quite this much for just the three of them.  "Omelettes in five."

"I take it you're in a mood to cook today?"  Steve can't help staring at it. He's never done too well with excess, especially not with food; it makes that twinge of Great Depression in him flare up.  It'd be worse now, except that he really is hungry enough to make it look appetizing enough that he can't feel bad about it.  

"Ah..I guess I am," Bruce laughs.  "Tony wanted me to make extra today, since we all ended up skipping dinner last night."   He slides a plate of pancakes down the bar for Steve to pick up, and then reaches for his coffee mug.  

Steve laughs, and stops at the cabinet long enough to fetch the maple syrup out, and is only a little sheepish when he confesses, "Technically, I didn't; I had a cupcake."

Bruce manages to give the captain a wide-eyed stare before he almost ruins his omelette with the mouthful of coffee that bursts out.

There's a mad shuffle as Steve jumps up to help, but Bruce wards him off, and Steve just stares in amazement that Bruce is _laughing_.  He's never laughed like that before, a crazy, completely un-burdened sound; if there were any justice in the world it would be worthy of lovingly-crafted sonnets to express how goddamned beautiful it sounds to the right ears, but it's beautiful because it's graceless. It's uncontrollable giggles, gasping and dripping coffee, occasionally interrupted by undignified snorts and, finally, a hacking cough as some of that leftover coffee goes up his nose.

At some point during all that, Tony's come running up the stairs, echoed faintly by the sound of Dummy trying to follow him and going ass-over-teakettle as it realizes it can't handle stairs by itself.

He and Steve share a look that answers the immediate questions and segues right into the ' _how-cool-is-this'_ smile, until Bruce finally starts dragging himself to his feet. It prompts them to go give him an arm up, and after a few short bursts of snickering, Bruce makes his way to the sink to rinse his face.

"What was _that_ all about? What'd I miss?"  Tony looks between them, expectant and more than a little pleased.

"He-- um."  Bruce snickers.  "We're out of cupcakes."

"...I don't know why that's funny," Steve says, and now that the moment is fading, he looks at Tony and sees the tape again, the wide eyes, the bruises, the blood.  He lets his eyes stray to the arc reactor, because it's a clean, healthy, reassuring light that belongs much better in the wake of Bruce's laughter than the nightmarish scene he's recalling. "But-- I had one for dinner. I'm sorry, if it was yours, I can replace it--"

Tony bites his lip to try to hold it back, but he can't.  And the grin that spreads across his face is so knowing and so amused, so perfectly on top of itself, as though whatever gag is going on here is so complicated and funny that he's too busy being proud of himself for understanding all of its levels to actually cut loose and laugh at it.  "No, no, it's fine. Sorry. It's...sort of an in-joke."

"I... I guess you had to be there."  Steve turns a little awkwardly pink, slightly put off at not understanding.

Tony looks back at Bruce, and then reaches over to the counter to flip the omelette out of the pan, set it on a plate, and then put it down in front of Steve with that grin still firmly, intensely in place. Somehow, in that second before he speaks, there's something so magnetic in that smile that Steve doesn't have time to be embarrassed at the flaring heat in the pit of his stomach.  

"Don't worry about it," Tony says, in a voice so dark and so smooth it might as well have made last night's controversial pastry taste like chalk,  "You will be." 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

Steve eats breakfast with a peach-pink flush across his cheeks.  They were teasing him.  Well, Tony was, anyway, and whenever Tony's going out of his way to be a pain Bruce is usually somewhere behind him trying not to laugh too hard. Clearly, though, this is a little different. A lot different.

There'd be more to say about it, if they weren't a tableful of grown men with accelerated metabolisms in dire need of making up for missed meals; once there's food on the table, conversation grinds to a halt.  

Steve volunteers to wash the dishes once Tony is satsified that no one is still hungry; as expected, neither of the others objects, and after a short cacophony of scraping plates and chugging last mouthfuls of orange juice and coffee, they disperse. 

Tony gives Steve a few thoughtful once-over looks, but his playful expression fades as he departs for the upstairs. There's something solemn in the way he walks, weighed down somehow even as his steps are sure and purposeful.  Bruce watches him go, almost looks like he wants to follow, but decides against it and disappears into the leaving room, leaving Steve alone with his thoughts.

If Tony had said something like that, sounding that way, and Bruce hadn't been laughing himself silly over it, Steve would be angry.  It sounded like seduction. It sounded like Tony was outright _promising_ him something lascivious, right in front of a man he claimed to love.  But Bruce had smiled the whole time, and Tony had called it an in-joke, and it sounded like...

No.  That's wishful thinking.  And this is not the time for that, because JARVIS will be done with his analysis today and then it'll be time to plan an assault on the people who dragged Tony into a cave with a car battery hooked up to a filthy, bleeding wound in his chest.   He thinks back to Bruce's words, and hates himself for not understanding sooner: The idea of being caught scares him, in a very deep way.  

He can't even bring himself to be as furious as he wants to be, because whatever else had happened in that cave, it had made Tony a better person. That part of his life had ended and there was no point in being upset about it, because it was all in the past and it had worked out, more or less, for the better. Just like everything else Steve had slept through.  

He scowls deeply at his reflection and tosses the sponge into the water to break it up.

Damn it all. 

He drains the sink, decides to finish the dishes later, and heads up to the gym.

\--

Bruce doesn't watch a lot of TV in English anymore, but he already knows there's no way he's getting back to work after a start like that,  so he cues up the local news in search of something to occupy his head for a little while.  He can't remember the last time he's laughed so hard at anything; he's never lost a body part before, but he imagines it's a bit like a shop teacher suddenly getting that cut-off finger back. 

The news cheerily informs him about the five-day forecast (clear skies all week, and expected showers all weekend) and road construction tying up traffic downtown, and nobody blames the Avengers for causing any of the damage in the first place. That's a nice change.   Then it moves on to society news, and since nobody he knows is going to be on there this week, Bruce isn't very interested.

So he tidies up a bit, just to occupy his hands; there are a couple of empty glasses left out, one of Tony's tumblers seems to have rolled under the couch and escaped anyone's notice.  He kneels down to pick it up, and notices a few pieces of scattered popcorn, which he scoops up.

That's when he notices some spiral binding sticking up from between two of the cushions.  Bruce plucks it out, thinking it must be one of Tony's engineering journals or something, and finds it to be not that at all.  There's a box of charcoal pencils stuck in with it, which Bruce rescues carefully, and curiously, he begins to flip through the pages.  

Drawings. Lots of them; loose sketches of the city skyline, a pair of big black ravens cawing at each other as they sit on the patio, one of Tony's martini glasses with only a little bit of gin left in the bottom and a cocktail napkin under it.   Loose, flowing things, characterful.

The more elaborate ones are in the back, these ones much more intimate, slice of life things. More memories than anything else; Clint fixing one of his arrows with an eyeglass-screwdriver, his chair tipped back precariously, bare toes clenched around the end of the table;  Natasha curled up in an armchair with a novel and a glass of wine.  Thor in casual Midgardian clothing, wearing a pair of headphones, mouth open as if he were singing.   Tony with his foot propped up on a barstool, tying his sneaker.  Bruce smiles; the last one in the batch is of himself, sitting in the lotus position and doing a breathing exercise, one shirtfront popped out of his slacks, glasses propped up on his forehead.

The most recent drawing, the one that forces Bruce to sit down, is of himself and Tony, asleep on the couch together.  It's almost like looking at a picture of two strangers, except there's really no denying it:  the rendering of their faces is accurate down to the last detail, even Bruce's five-o-clock shadow and the lines at the corners of Tony's eyes.  They both look younger in the way that some people do in their sleep, peaceful and content.   

It speaks so clearly, not just to Steve's considerable talent, but the emotion captured in the moment; it's not so much a drawing as it is a love letter in charcoal. 

 

\--

 

The gym is usually Steve's place of refuge.  Of course he doesn't mind when other people use it, and of course keeping in shape is part of the job so the others all do,  but that doesn't stop him from being slightly irritated when he finds Tony working one of the punching bags.

Tony doesn't hear the door, so Steve watches him, idly thinking back to what Bruce had said about his study and practice.  Iron Man's modus operandi in battle is usually relegated to an arsenal of projectile weapons, repulsor blasts, and good old-fashioned physics (ie, launching himself into things like a speeding car).  Watching Tony putting his actual flesh-and-blood fists against a physical object is something of a rare treat: they've sparred once before, Tony in-suit, because...well, that was the only way to make it a fair fight.   That was some time ago, now. 

His moves have gotten sharper, more crisp, even slightly exotic in a way that suggests Natasha's been giving him pointers, but he's not a soldier or an assassin or superhuman. He's also a mostly-unaltered human, and when the suit's off and there's no glowing blue sufficiently-advanced technology around for him to play with, it shows.  

Steve gives up on it and approaches the corner.  "Hey." 

Tony lands another blow and rocks the bag before giving Steve his attention.  "Hey. Am I in your way?"

"No."  

"Good."   He starts to smile, the way he does when he's about to suggest going off and doing something fun, but it breaks before it quite gets to his eyes, and he tries again.  It takes an uncomfortably long time for him to force the words out, because for Tony, it's a very hard sentence to say,  "...I want to talk to you."

Steve stares for a second, incredulous almost to the point of being shocked.  "Okay. I'm listening."

Tony doesn't answer at first, too wide-eyed to give speaking another chance, as if no one's ever actually _said_ those words to him one after the other before.  His fingers twitch like he wants to fuss with something, like he wants to say or do something to grease the rusty machine he's trying to engage in his own brain.

"Um. Is this a future thing? Because the way I remember it, this is the part where you say words, and I listen to them." 

That seems to rattle Tony enough to get him to re-align himself, and he frowns.  "...I suck at being direct," he says. 

"You're doing okay, so far.  Seriously, Tony. What's wrong?"  Steve straightens up a little, those first tones of the Captain America Voice fading into his words.  "Whatever it is, you can tell me."

"Sorry. It's... it's a lot, and I don't have it organized very well in my head yet.  But organizing has never worked well for me before and all my best speeches were improvised, so fuck it, I'm just going to go ahead and do that."  Tony peels the athletic tape off of his fingers, seeming to feel better after finding something to do with his hands.   "How'd you sleep, night before last?"

Steve flushes a light pink.  "...Well enough, I guess."

"Yeah. Me too."  The tape starts coming away in loose curls as he tugs at it.  "...You like me and Bruce. I keep remembering what you said the other day, how looking at sex doesn't interest you but me and him do. What did you mean? And don't wuss out on answering me, this is important."

"Was I not clear about it before?" Steve's lips tighten.  "I'm the faithful type.  Sex doesn't mean anything unless it actually means something, and with you and him, it obviously does, and that's--"  His flush darkens. "--different.  I'm sorry if I've been a pain about it, I don't mean to be."

"The faithful type."  Tony thinks.  "...So it's not that it doesn't mean _anything_ , just that it doesn't mean anything to _you_."

Steve doesn't answer, and that's close enough to a yes.  "I'm not really seeing why we have to discuss this again."

"Because I missed something important the first time and I was chewing on it all day trying to pin it down. And now I think I've got it."  He peels the last of the tape off and lets it fall in a little pile at his feet.  "...But let's go back to that conversation, just for a sec, okay?  I'm a people-collector. I like having my loved ones close.  I like knowing they're safe, and I don't like seeing them go hungry in my house, and I don't like seeing them disrespected.  I like giving them presents, even when I know they don't like it when I do."

"There's nothing wrong with that, Tony."  Steve fidgets uncomfortably, because he knows that last one is aimed at him.   

"Yeah, there is, sometimes."  He exhales, and looks up at Steve, a rare, raw honesty in his stance. Bare hands, bare feet, square shoulders and that one bright light in the middle of his chest.  "Like if you've been doing it long enough that it doesn't mean anything anymore."

"Your generosity isn't meaningless.  I know I'm looking at it from a.. uh, much older, less wealthy perspective, but you built us all a house. _Each of us_  a house, all of them designed just for us-- and most of us wouldn't have anywhere else to really live, at least on the ground, on this planet. And they're nice ones, too,  I think my bathroom is bigger than my old apartment."   Steve smiles, trying to be reassuring.

"It's not, but the walk-in makes it about two square feet larger than that floorplan, but who's counting, Steve?" Tony swallows.  "You're proving my point. The Tower? Purely selfish. I wanted everyone near me and I needed a place to put them, so I built one. And that's such a comparitively huge gesture it doesn't mean as much when I carry you home because I don't want you to wear Fury's stupid parachute like it's a dunce cap, or when I jump into a stupid bet with you because even if I lose I still get to give you your birthday present early, or when I make you watch stupid TV shows from my childhood..."

That shuts Steve's mouth, and puts color in his cheeks.  Seems like he's done a lot of that lately, feeling that warmth in his stomach that puts heat on his face and the back of his neck when either of them says the right things.  And every time, he lets himself privately enjoy the feeling without thinking, because there's nothing to think about. Bruce and Tony are together. That's wonderful and worth respect and celebration. That's the end of the matter.

"I do those things because... because I love you, and I want you for myself, and I'm bad at saying it any other way.  And I know that must sound so fucked up for so many reasons, but it's true."  

The words run through Steve's head.  He doesn't know whether to reach for him or throttle him or just to turn around and walk out, because in one breath he's offering something Steve's been pretending not to wish for and destroying the most beautiful thing in his life.  "What about Bruce?"

"He said he knew. He always knew."  Tony sinks a bit, because the icy chill in Steve's voice is more than enough to tell him this has gone badly.  "And he told me to tell you, and he's willing to roll with it however it goes.  He's... well, he's like that.   He likes you, y'know."

Steve reaches out to put a hand on Tony's shoulder, his fingers slack and indifferent, as if he's only making the gesture because he feels like it's appropriate. "I like Bruce, too.  He's decent, and he's honest. He's patient and understanding, and more perceptive than people give him credit for, and he loves you enough to let you go.   If that's not enough for you, Tony, then I already know I wouldn't be."  

He pulls away solemnly, and walks out of the gym without so much of a glance back.

Tony doesn't watch which way he goes, doesn't even turn around; when he hears the elevator chime, he picks up the shoes, and takes the stairway up to the lounge. He needs a drink.

 

\--

 

Steve returns to the kitchen because the gym, for the moment, is corrupted, and setting himself to chores is the next best thing he can think of to do with his time because they've got to get done.  He hates himself a little for resigning himself to janitorial duties-- in the house of a man who's proven himself to be more of a heel than he ever imagined, no less!-- in order to curb the frustration boiling in his skull. 

"Steve? Are you okay?"  

Bruce appears in the doorway from the living room, evidently having done a bit of tidying.  He's got a couple of forgotten empty glasses in one hand, and something spiral-bound in the other, and a somewhat worried expression on his face.  

"Ah.. yeah, sorry." He reaches for a hand towel to rid himself of the dishwater, and loosely folds it as he sets it aside. "Did you need something?"

The good doctor smiles nervously at the gesture, and then sets the spiral-bound thing on the countertop. It's Steve's sketchbook, which Bruce has apparently rescued from being wedged into the couch; there's a little spot of grease on the cover from prolonged popcorn-exposure.  "I think we should probably talk."

"Mm, all right."  Lovely. More talking. The crawling heat makes its way up into Steve's scalp, and he can't help folding his arms over his chest, defensive. He knows what's in it. He doesn't want to see it.   "What about?"

"About this."   Bruce slides the sketchbook over, and flips it open to the drawing of himself and Tony sleeping on the couch together.  

Steve tries not to look like it bothers him; Bruce can tell it does by the way he doesn't look at it.  "I didn't mean to leave that lying around."

"Sorry."  He smiles in an effort to be reassuring, but the smell of repressed anger wrinkles Bruce's nose.  "Um. First thing, let me say that I had no idea how talented you are, and I'd really like to keep this, if you'll let me."

"If you like."  Steve reaches for it, and gently tears the page out at the perforated edge. He doesn't want it, anyway. "All yours."

Bruce takes it, and sets it in front of him on the table, facedown because Steve obviously doesn't want to see it  "... You really do like Tony and me," he says. There's no questioning in his tone, and Steve doesn't answer him.  "...I feel stupid," he admits.  "For not seeing it myself. For not acknowledging it, maybe, and I think I owe you an apology."

"You don't, Bruce. It's not really any of my business," Steve responds coldly.  "I'm sorry for gawking.  I won't do it anymore, I promise."

"No, don't be. This... no."  Bruce rakes his fingers through his hair, confused enough that it's beginning to affect his carefully-managed zen.   "Could-- could you tell me why you're angry with me, please? I'm trying to play it cool and it's not working."

"I'm not angry with you."  Steve takes a slow breath and tries to calm himself down. Right. He can smell it, can't he? "..I'm angry with Tony, because he just fed me a bunch of bull about how he-- he... well, he's full of it, is the point."

"...I see. I'm guessing you're not taking it very well. That's unfortunate."  Bruce folds his hands.  

Steve can't help it; his shoulders drop and his eyes widen and he just stares at Bruce-- sweet, mild-mannered, occasionally cynical but always sympathetic, perpetual cauldron of boundless rage Bruce-- as if he's grown a second head.  "You really _did_ put him up to it, didn't you? Bruce-- _what the Hell_?"

Bruce sighs. "I told him to tell you because I've known it for months, and _not_ telling you was killing him.  If you accepted him, great; he'd be in the hands of someone I trust, and we could still be friends. That's enough for me.  If not, then he'd be forced to get over you, and I'd be there to help him through it.  But I was wrong to go about it that way, I know that now."

"You're damn right you were!"  Steve straightens in his chair, grateful to at least hear Bruce agree that it was a mistake, for all the good that does.   "You trust me. I can't even believe that, Bruce, you sent him to me, _expecting_ me to betray you-- to be _happy_ if I betrayed you.  I thought-- aren't we better friends than that?"

" _Because_ I trust you, yes. And I should have thought about what that meant sooner, Steve. That was my mistake and I'm going to owe you and Tony a lot of apologies for it, so let me say I'm sorry now, and explain."  He reaches for the paper and turns it back over.  

Steve scowls at it, because right now he feels completely sabotaged by that image. 

Bruce slides it back over to him, points at the big, empty blotch of negative space on Tony's other side.  "When Tony confided in me that he had feelings for you, I wasn't surprised; I told him to tell you honestly how he felt.  To me, you and him make _sense_ together, so of course I didn't mind.  And then I saw this."  

He reaches for Steve's hand, clasps it in his warm, blunt, always-gentle grip.   "If you can't accept either of us because that means rejecting the other, then just accept us both. That's-- that's what he and I really want, Steve. The only thing missing from this picture is _you_."

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh. Fun story. I hadn't actually meant to post that last chapter, I thought I had just saved it as a draft before I went to bed? But uh... that didn't work out like I thought, apparently. orz I'm sorry for any perceived lack of quality because of that. I could have gone back and polished it, but so many people had commented, I felt it would be better to just continue on with the story and relieve the cliffhanger. I promise I'll get back to replying to comments for this chapter!

 

 

 

 

The concept of having two lovers isn't exactly foreign to him, but Steve had always imagined that as a matter of infidelity-- the cheating wife, the husband with a mistress-- and so the natural argument occurs when Bruce explains, very gently, that love and sexuality aren't always confined to the narrow hallways that most people use to define them.  

"No, it's not typical, but _we're_ not typical either. I'm not asking you to compromise anything you believe in.  I don't want you to do anything you're not comfortable with."  Bruce hasn't let go of his hand yet, like he thinks Steve will bolt if he does.  "We hit on something good, that's all." 

Steve lets his eyes rest on the spots where their fingers meet, quiet for a long moment. It's not worth it to be angry because this has all been very complicated, and tiring, and just this small point of contact is comforting right now.  "...I'm not used to this," he admits.  

"Your capacity for understatement is astounding." 

"Don't joke."  He frowns.  "I'm-- not used to being attracted to people, physically, much less people who are already committed to each other. It's never mattered before."

Bruce tilts his head in question. "Never? ... You're Captain America."  There aren't many polite ways to say 'people have made careers out of dressing like you for fetish porn', but Bruce would probably not mention it even if he knew any.

"Yes."  Steve can feel the flash-fry on his face again. He probably hasn't had his own un-reddened complexion in a week.  "It just doesn't do anything for me unless... there's real emotion involved.  And with you, it's real, so..."   

"Ah. I see. I guess-- well, no, it's still a relatively new concept now, of course they wouldn't have had a good word for it back then."  Bruce smiles, because of all the stupid crap they've been getting wrong when it should have been very, very easy to get it right, this one seems like the most obvious missing piece of the puzzle.  "It sounds like what you're describing is demisexuality."

When Steve gives him that please-don't-make-fun-of-me look, Bruce continues.  "That is, some people are asexual, and have no sexual feelings at all. Demisexual describes having no sexual feelings unless there's an emotional connection to an individual, often without regard for gender.  Is that why you keep backing off?"

Normally, Steve would assert that he doesn't care much for names. He prefers the truth and simple facts and to judge everyone and everything on a case-by-case basis, if it calls for judgment at all, but there's comfort in a label, reassurance that yes, there is a word for you, there's a place for you in the grand scheme of things. He nods, slowly.  "I only very rarely feel that way about anyone at all, but that shouldn't change anything. You and he are great for each other and I want to support that; it's wrong to interfere, even if I don't mean anything malicious by it."

"You're _not_ interfering. You never were."   Bruce squeezes his hand.  "The only person who can decide what you are, and what you want, is you. And I'm sorry that it took us all so much time and so much trouble to arrive at something that should have been simple and obvious.  Just.. give it some thought, okay?"

And with that, without any hesitation, he leans forward and lightly brushes a kiss against the corner of Steve's mouth.   He doesn't wait for a response, doesn't reassure him it's okay, doesn't apologize; he just does it, and smiles and heads for the stairs.  

Steve watches him go, and is left with a drawing that doesn't have him in it.  

He has no real context to imagine what a relationship like that would be like.  Not very different, he suspects, than it is now, except he wouldn't have to leave when he walked into the lab and found them in flagrante delicto. Or maybe they'd tell him first, he doesn't know. And what the Hell is that bar for, anyway? Would they share a bed? Tony's can fit at a football team. Or at least a cheerleading squad, if the stories are true.

About halfway through wondering how the Hell that even works, his phone rings. 

Oh, Hell. Of fucking _course_.

"Yes, Director? ... Yeah, this is just about the worst possible time, is it important?"

Naturally, it is.

 

\--

 

1921 _Especial reposado._  An award-winning, elegant tequila, complex and aromatic, yet smooth on the finish and blooming with a rich combination of buttery caramel and firm oak.  

There's probably cheaper ways to drink himself into a stupor, but it's not like Tony's breaking into the special edition Patron.  There's also probably more tasteful ways to drink it than straight from the bottle, but right now, he'd like to feel stronger than he is, and drinking hard liquor from its own vessel is a great way to feel like a depressed cowboy.  Of course, this part would be more fun if there wasn't a huge breakfast to soak it all up.

The thought crosses his mind that Steve hasn't seen any spaghetti westerns yet and the _Dollars_ trilogy was awesome, and he punctuates it with another swig. 

He doesn't notice Bruce until the bottle slides away from him, and he lazily paws after it like a cranky tomcat.  "...I'm bad at being direct," he mumbles into the crook of his elbow.

"No. You did good. _I_ screwed up."  Bruce sets the bottle-- he can't remember if it was open before, or how much was in it if it was.  

"You're wonderful," bleats the genius facedown on the bar. 

"I know.  But I still screwed up, and I'm sorry."  

Tony watches him as he goes behind the counter and starts filling the tallest glass he can find.   "I fucked it up, Bruce.  I fucked up like we all knew I was going to, and Steve's too nice to punch me in the face. And now look at me. I'm sitting here with an _un-punched_ face, and that's just too fucked up for words." 

"No. Here, drink."   Bruce slides him the glass.  "This is a great pout you've got going on and I'm sorry to interrupt, but this isn't your fault."

"Drinking. I got it."  Tony takes it and begins chugging it down, and once the glass is finished, he gives the doctor a half-hearted glare.  "You traitor, that was water."

"I talked to Steve--"

"Oh, of course. He told you what a lout I am, right?"

"He never called you a lout, or anything else. He just misunderstood, and now he gets it, and I get it, and this is the part where you get it:  I invited him in with us, because we both want you, and you want both of us, and none of us wants to give each other up, and there's nothing wrong with that."  Bruce goes and refills the glass.  "We were just too stupid to realize it." 

"...Whoa."  Tony blinks at him.  "You-- you're sure you're cool with that? Kind of a big step for you and Big Green."

"I'm safe with him and you.  That's what matters; the rest we can work out, if he decides he's okay with it. And if he's not, then we can always leave him an open door."   Bruce puts the glass in front of Tony again, giving him the Stern Doctor look, except that face doesn't work very well when he's fussing over Tony.  "...I didn't start thinking like this until I came here.  I'm used to not getting what I want, that doesn't mean I can't make it clear that what I want is welcome in my life. I have you to thank for that, and I'm not walking out on it. And I don't think he will, either."

"He still hates me.  And he had a good point, that if everything you are to me isn't enough, then he wouldn't be either, and... and I don't want to be impossible to please."  Tony looks up at him, vulnerable and raw and honest in a way that only compromised judgment really allows.  "...I don't make you feel like that, right? Like you're not good enough?"   He takes another long drink, solemn.

"If I wasn't good enough, you wouldn't have brought me here. And I wouldn't have come up here trying to mop you up, if I didn't think I could."   Bruce reaches and ruffles Tony's hair gently.  "And he doesn't hate you. He just doesn't do well in a catch-22.  Which I didn't know he'd be in when I told you to just lay it out for him. This is on me and it's not your fault, so sober up, you'll be fine."

Tony begins chugging the water down again, and gets full about halfway to the bottom of the glass.    

Steve's footsteps precede him as comes up, pretending this isn't the second most awkward time he's ever approached them from a staircase.  

"I...ah.  I really hate to break this up, but Fury was just on the ph--  Tony? Are you drunk? It's not even _lunch_ yet."

"No, I'm not, but I promise I'm trying."  Tony scowls.  "Fuck you for asking, by the way."

"Right back at you, Stark."

Bruce just gives both of them a disapproving frown, which shuts them both up rather neatly.  "What does Fury want, Steve?"

"I asked JARVIS to run an analysis for me, and it turns out the route-tracking I was doing intersects with a SHIELD investigation."  

"So, does that mean we need to look elsewhere for our Explosion Party? I'm not letting you crap out on our bet, you know, I don't care if you think I'm a cad," Tony says, haughty in that he does business with people who hate him all the time.

"I told him we'd handle it personally, and he didn't object, on the grounds that we ship out immediately."  Steve approaches the bar, not quite as hesitant as he otherwise might have.  "I thought we could use the exercise.  And I don't think you're a cad."

"Are you going to be okay to fly?"  Bruce tries to check Tony's eyes, but Tony shoos him off.

"JARVIS, what's my blood alcohol?"

"Well within legal limits, sir."

Tony nods.  "We're good."

"I can't believe you were drinking this early in the day..."  Steve leans on the bar, frowning. 

"Hey. We deal with shit in our own ways, all right? If you're going to lecture me about my unhealthy coping mechanisms, let me know now so I can drop trou and make it easier for you to spit-shine my balls while you're at it."  

Steve just gives him a flat glare.  "Yeah, well, we can talk about who's doing what to whose balls when we get back.  If the three of us got into this _patently ridiculous_ mess by being idiots, you're not going to improve things by crawling into a bottle."   He looks between Tony and Bruce, expression softening in something like an apology.  "This is my olive branch, okay? Let's go make the world a better place by blowing some stuff up and putting away bad guys, and remind ourselves what we're doing here to begin with. The rest, we can work out when we get home."

Tony and Bruce share a look, and then turn their attention back to Steve, whose face is, for once, its typical color.

Bruce takes a slow breath in through his nose, and then smiles pleasantly as he heads off toward his room.  "I'm gonna go and pack."

 

\--

 

Seeing the place live and up close-- rather, from a safe distance on a rocky outcropping about a half-mile away through some of the most advanced surveillance technology in the world-- answers a few quick questions:  one, the munitions depot had in fact been built, and since expanded into an entire compound, and two, it was absolutely under the control of the Ten Rings and didn't make even a token effort to hide it.

"Son of a bitch."   Iron Man's voice doesn't sound displeased, exactly. He's got an advanced view of soldiers and trucks milling around like ants in an anthill. He can't see any crates, yet, but there's a huge variety among the standard equipment that suggests he's not the only guy whose tech is getting bootlegged out here.  It's only slightly comforting.  "I can't believe I never found this myself; I feel like you found me a birthday present in my own basement."

"I thought it'd make a nice surprise. And it's a fair trade for the Bridgestone, then, if that's how you feel about it."  Cap half-grins.  "Well. This is supposed to be your show, Stark.  What's your plan?  Run in, blow everything up, make it home before dinner?"

"That just about sums it up. Doesn't really matter who's running that circus," he says, gesturing toward the hive of warehouses and tents and derelict trucks in the distance.  "as long as they're not still operating by the time we're done.  You cool with that, Cap?"

"Sounds fine to me.  Bruce? Are you still in?" 

Bruce is already kicking off his shoes and making sure his Hulk-Out Bag is safely out of the way.  "You're sure these guys are the Ten Rings?"

"That's their emblem on the central warehouse, I'm pretty sure."

"Then I'm in."

Iron Man and Captain America start making that half-mile trek into enemy territory when they start hearing Bruce's bones rearranging.   They figure he'll probably catch up.

 

-

 

Hulk smashes.  It is what Hulk does best, and likes most.

Bruce is small and not very good at smashing, so it is best that Bruce let Hulk handle this.  Bruce has also not been very good at smart lately, which is what Bruce does best, and likes most.  Sometimes, it is good to take breaks for smash.  Bruce can have a nap while Hulk smashes.  

Hulk thinks this is a good idea.

There are lots of squishy humans.  They are noisy, and shoot guns, and Hulk does not like guns or tanks or army men.  They smell like fighting and angry.  

Iron Man is somewhere behind him, blasting things.  That's okay. Iron Man is good at blasting.  Star Man went somewhere else.  That's also okay because Hulk will not smash him by accident.

A thing flies up and hits Hulk in the face. Hulk thinks it is a car, but he does not care, because it is big and heavy and good for smashing things that are bigger than Hulk's hands, such as other cars, or for smashing things that come in sets, such as people with guns.   They also work great on tanks, especially when there is a tank with a big gun in front that is shooting at the Hulk.

Today is a good day for Hulk.

 

\--

 

He's never liked the idea of killing anybody or anything, but Steve loves being a soldier and, more than that, battle is just second-nature to him now.   To a certain extent, knowing there's no limits and no rules beyond common decency is wildly liberating: SHIELD's occasionally bureaucratic approach to this kind of thing is frustrating, because it means prioritizing information and gaining advantages over people who need help immediately.  Today he doesn't have to care about preserving anything except what's important, and the rest can eat vibranium and bullets.

The first wave is always hardest; he never goes in with a weapon. It's his preferred means, because it's his experience that anyone willing to shoot a man with no weapon is probably worth taking out anyway:  bullets start flying off of his shield and he takes off running fist-first into the guy with the biggest gun. 

Steve has never met a type 4 Kalashnikov assault rifle before, but he doesn't take very long to decide he likes it.  

Iron Man and the Hulk are essentially land-and-air-based disasters, and so make excellent cover.  He figures they probably have the destruction element covered, so he makes a few educated guesses on where the most intuitive place to keep prisoners would be.

The first one leads him into something like a motor pool, full of various cargo vehicles of all sorts of make and model, including what Steve is pretty sure is an ordinary American pickup truck, of all things.  The second one pans out, and in a few brief bursts of gunfire and two bank-shots with his shield, the six guards keeping a handful of very angry prisoners under control are taken out of commission.

He doesn't really need a common language to express the concept of a jailbreak, and just lets them out, pointing toward the back exit and the motorpool on the other side.  Most of them look like soldiers, anyway; if he had to guess, they were probably the drivers from the convoys those vehicles had been captured from.  He makes a point of breaking the lock, just in case, and then heads off back into the fray.

He gets one foot out of the door before a blistering, electric scream comes over his comm unit, and it sends his stomach into the soles of his boots: Tony's distress signal.

 

\--

 

Iron Man is dangerous even on his bad days, but today, he has a lot of aggression to work out and a lot of really, really acceptable targets. He starts with the machines first: there's vehicles everywhere, power lines, stuff that means communication and backup and all the important stuff an organization needs, so he takes his frustration out on those first.  After that, the practical stuff, and then, saving the best for last, the fun stuff.

As it turns out, the Hulk apparently hates things like tanks with a special passion. There's really only two here, a couple of M-84s, one of which looks like it's had one of its treads removed and is mid-repair.  The big smooth bore cannon on the front works just fine, although it only gets off one round before the Hulk goes flying at it with a Jeep hooked under his fingers like the world's most nightmarish picnic basket.  

Tony writes that off as being the end of the tanks, and when he gets a look at the flood of unarmed people fleeing into one building and then tearing out of it in a fleet of vehicles, he moves on to the big, shiny red blip on his radar that tells him where all his stolen toys have got off to.

He's almost offended when he gets there.  It's just stacked up in boxes on shelves, not even reinforced boxes. Milk crates at best.   Plenty of his own products are there (more Freedom line; he wishes he'd named it something else, because sure it was a fun, money-generating buzzword  in the post-9/11 weapons market, but how pedestrian can you get, really?), but there's a little bit of everything. Just on a first glance he can pick out stuff from Russia, China, America, and, much more creepy, a ton of things Tony's never seen before. 

Outside is chaos, but he's not interested for the moment.  What matters now is that the Edith System is fully wired into this building, and it's attached to a new thing instead of the thousand or so chemical jets designed to hose everything in the area down with a lovely cocktail of corrosive acids and flammable vapors, followed by what looked like (to the weapons demonstration crowd) a lovely rain of shiny stars and a fireball big enough to take out Mothra.

"JARVIS? What the Hell is that?" 

The answer flares to life on his HUD. He scans it and surmises that the big glowing thing in the center of the warehouse is probably an attempt at an Arc Reactor knockoff, but it's not powering anything.  

Oh. Naturally, they made it into a bomb.

No, scratch that: not a bomb. A series of bombs.  

Well, defusing them seems like the smartest thing to do, but that takes more tools, more time than they've got.  Tony takes a few hesitant steps toward what seems to be a central console, and immediately regrets it: his HUD shivers, and his own Arc Reactor gives a fantastic lurch in his chest as it sparks in reaction to whatever kind of field is being generated by this sloppily-constructed bootleg security system.

The big blue glowing column in the center doesn't seem to like it either, but where Tony feels it like a hiccup, the big one feels it like a punch in the mouth, and everything starts to get very hot, and even the filtered air in the suit begins to develop an acidic taste.

JARVIS is savvy enough to hit the emergency alert while Tony dives at full-speed through the open door.

 

\--

 

There's a few foreboding seconds of energy whining through the air, as if somewhere not far off there's been a radio or a television turned on, just barely audible under the scream of tires and frightened men.   When it passes, the world erupts in bright, electric pops of blue energy and the billowing red-and-black of fire, and the earth under their feet ignites.

Somewhere under the adrenaline and the will to put a stop to all this, to get vengeance for crimes committed against their own, by others and by themselves, there's the fear for one another, and the terrifying last-second realization that they can't breathe.  Maybe they could hold out a little longer, if they hadn't both wasted their last lungfuls of breath, shouting for each other and for Bruce.

But that's okay.

Hulk has good ears.

He doesn't like fire and he doesn't really like the noise, because he can't really smash either of those things, but it doesn't matter, because Iron Man and Star Man are in trouble, and that's bad.

It doesn't take very long to find them. Star Man is shiny and blue, and Iron Man is glowy in the middle.  They look like broken toys. 

This place is bad for them now. 

Time to leave.

 

\---

 

Steve wakes up to the feeling of being cradled gently in the Hulk's gigantic green armpit, which has its upsides and its downsides.   Upside? It's quiet and there's plenty of shade.  Downside? It's a gigantic green armpit.   He's being carried under the Hulk's arm like a library book, knees dangling alongside the Hulk's huge thigh.

They seem to be in mid Hulk-jump, and a sooty, filthy Iron Man is hanging from the other gigantic green armpit, looking like he might have tried to struggle at some point, but had since given up on it.  

Steve twists just enough to face him, and calls,  "Tony? You're not dead in that tin can, right?" 

Without missing a beat comes the response: "Hey, soldier, you're awake. Goin' my way?"

"Yeah, you're fine."

"Always."   He coughs lightly inside the helmet.  "Are you hurt?"

"I think I'm okay. Might need time to grow my eyebrows back, though. Are you okay? What happened?"

"Edith System, just hooked up to something way worse than normal.  And I'm fine. Suit's a little FUBAR but other than that, I'm ducky."

"Foober?"

"FUBAR. Fucked Up Beyond All Reason."  

"Tony! Language!"

"...Are you seriously going to give me shit about saying fuck at a time like this?" 

"Do you really want to teach the Hulk that kind of language?"

"You're being airlifted out of a burning wreckage by a guy who can eat monster trucks if he wants, and you're concerned about his potty mouth?"

Steve just grins; his face is rapidly working its way from second-degree burns to first-degree burns to mild sunburns, but it doesn't impede his smile at all.   "Not really, but it should be getting to morning back home about now, and I owed you a stupid argument."

Tony just goes slack in the Hulk's arm, pops his faceplate open, and laughs.

Not long afterward, they land back at that rocky outcropping, the Hulk apparently having been able to sense or remember the place for Bruce left his backpack.  He climbs up to the highest, safest part he can reach, and dumps the two of them on the ground.

He reaches for Iron Man and starts pulling at his armor-- Steve starts to protest but Tony tells him to let it go, this part is okay-- and Tony just lifts his arms and legs in turn to let the Hulk strip him out of the suit.  He's surprisingly gentle with each piece, though he's not nearly delicate enough to actually preserve any of the damaged parts.

Left with Tony in just his clothes, the Hulk takes a moment to inspect Tony all over, poking at his hands and knees and elbows to make sure all the parts work and he doesn't make ouch noises when they move.   

"It's okay, Big Green. I'm not hurt.  What about you? How'd you do out there, buddy?"  Tony is practically sitting in the Hulk's palm; Steve can't really do anything but gawk and desperately try not to upset anyone.

"Hulk smash,"  the Hulk informs him. 

"Awesome. Good work." 

Hulk sets Tony down and then reaches for Steve.  Steve just holds himself very still, and when Hulk decides he doesn't know how Star Mans work, he dumps him onto Tony's lap and says,  "Here.  Tony fix." 

"Leave it to me, Big Green. I got this."   Tony smiles, and obligingly cradles an unwounded, if slightly burnt, Steve in his arms.   "What are you gonna do now?  Do we get Bruce back?"

"No. Bruce dumb.  Tony and Star Man dumb too."    The Hulk reaches down to Steve's arm, and slides the vibranium shield off, observing it the way a small child might observe a shiny new coin: the roundness of it, the silvery gleam, the differences between each side. Steve is only slightly alarmed at how very little choice in the matter he got.

"...Yeah. Tony and Star Man and Bruce have all been kind of stupid lately,"  Tony admits, and lightly pats Steve's shoulder.   "We'll get better."

The Hulk nods his big, green head, apparently heedless of the pile of Iron Man armor he's left on the ground, or the very confused, almost frightened look on Captain America's face, and then happens upon what may have been the most dangerous ingenuity ever devised by an enormous green rage monster.

He takes Captain America's shield, and slides it onto his finger like a joy buzzer. 

Tony stares in horror and claps his hand over Steve's mouth, before he says something to get them all smashed.

Hulk pats the space next to him, and then brings his palm up once, just to bring it down not-so-hard against the ground. The impact of the shield, reflecting the resistance of the stone, crumbles the cliff-face under it with an oddly harmonic burst of noise.  Hulk seems to like the implications.

"Hulk finish smash now."  

And then he's gone, bouncing back toward the wreckage, and the rest of the un-detonated explosives, and the other tank.

Tony and Steve, left sitting on the cliff, are left watching as the battlefield continues exploding, this time with bursts of lovely harmonic noise punctuating the anti-mechanical carnage like the cannons of the 1812 Overture.

"...Do you think we should start getting back there, before he turns back in the middle of a fire?"

"Yeah. But let's not walk too fast."  Tony starts unpacking Bruce's knapsack, gives the cue to collapse his armor-- it ends up something of a lumpy garbage cube-- and then stuffs it inside, electing to carry the aging jeans and a red-and-yellow Carl Sagan "We Are Made Of Stars" T-shirt himself.   "He looks like he's enjoying himself."

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

As it turns out, the Hulk knows how to fucking _party_.

He's essentially fireproof, or at least these fires don't quite have the juice to give him any trouble, once the initial blast has died down.  By the time Cap and Tony make it within spitting distance of the carnage, he's all sunshine and rainbows and impact craters, running through sprinklers of flammable gas and smashing everything that isn't fire with the Shield.  The musical clangs of vibranium against various surfaces and the wind and the roaring fires make for a strangely compelling combination; it's really only one lightning guitar solo shy of a Dragonforce track.

By now it's a parking lot, and little else.  The conflagration already brought down most of the buildings and the Hulk has completely obliterated the two tanks; presumably the escaping prisoners made off with the vehicles, if the fleeing tire tracks scattering in all directions are any indication. 

Steve surmises it all, fondly smiling at the joyful absurdity of the Hulk playing "Jousting Knight" using a forklift for a lance and the twisted remains of a scaffold as an opponent.  The forklift explodes into bits and the Hulk practically shatters the structure when he continues flying into it.  "What were you saying the other day, about Bruce wanting to let the Hulk out, so it's working?"

"Oh.  Well."   Tony smiles. He's not sure if this is what it's like to watch your own kid flinging himself into playground equipment, but he doubts it's quite this cool.   "The Hulk is complicated. He's not Bruce Banner's boundless rage in human form; he was always _there_ , he was just buried under all the Brucey goodness."  His face relaxes a little, solemn.  "...I'm going to tell you this because I don't think he will, but I think you should know; he says he feels safe with you and I believe him.  Can I trust you with that?"

It's a serious question, and Cap doesn't think he's ever heard Tony take on that tone of voice, not even with Fury, or Pepper, or ... anyone.  It's the first time he's ever thought Tony could sound more serious than his father. But the answer would be the same, regardless.  "Of course."

Tony seems to accept it, maybe a little reluctantly, and then turns back to watch the Hulk pick up part of a wall and fling it at another wall.  "Little kids that have really fucked-up shit happen to them over the course of time, they don't usually understand it.  They just separate from it, they pretend they're somewhere else, that they're somebody else, in order to protect themselves."

Steve frowns, not liking this at all. "What happened to him?"

"His father."  Tony almost spits the word, and doesn't, because he's trying to keep it level. Reliable, maybe; steady, reassuring.  "I don't know what happened there, except the SHIELD files say his old man beat his mom to death in front of him, and then spent the next ten or so years beating him bloody  for being too smart."

"...Good Lord."  Steve's eyes stray back to the Hulk, gleefully destroying everything around him with childish wrath.

"Years later, when the right gamma radiation accident happens, that kid-- who's all grown up now, and hasn't had any reason to be so terrified in a long time-- gets so scared that he regresses back to that moment, and this monster he dreamed up comes to life to save him."  Tony doesn't like saying it, it's obvious in the way he detaches a little himself as he describes it.  "And he does.  And he does such a good job that Bruce wakes up naked in piles of bodies every so often.   _That's_ what the Hulk is."

Steve nods slowly, putting the pieces together as he watches said green rage monster tearing around the place.  It's such a cruel embodiment of innocence, when he thinks about it.  "It's like the Tower, isn't it? You built him a relationship to help him become comfortable with himself."

"Yeah." He chuckles. "I never thought of it like that, but yeah, I guess so. We built it together as a project."  Tony looks back at Steve, and there's a certain honesty, something running a little deeper than a shared love of science, in his eyes.  "It's not really about control, it's not even really about me wanting to take care of him, although that part integrates nicely. It's about teaching his body not to treat every raised heartbeat like a threat.  He doesn't need fixing, he isn't broken; he just needs to feel _safe._ "

And there it is, that indefineable something, that flares heat in Steve's belly.  It's the reality of their affection, how much it means and how much it matters, how clearly he can feel it-- it's perfect, and alive, and beautiful.   He thinks of saying so, of explaining, but then there's the Hulk's pounding feet coming closer and the moment passes.

Tony turns to face the oncoming rage monster with a bright smile.  "Hey.  Did you have fun?"

"Smash done."   He points to his playground, which is now burning and flat and empty.  "Hulk run out of stuff."

"Nice work, Big Green."  He holds up his palm for a high-five, and Steve goes ghostly pale as he sees Hulk lift his hand-- only to poke very gently at Tony's palm with one huge, green finger.   He doesn't smile, because the Hulk rarely ever smiles for happiness' sake, but he sits down, apparently calm. 

"Star Man okay?"  Hulk looks down at the aforementioned Star Man, his face hovering at a comfortable medium between being pleased to see him, and having had enough of squishy humans today.

"Yeah, I'm fine."  Steve smiles, and holds up his palm for the Hulk to touch.   "How about you? Are you hurt anywhere?"

"No, Hulk okay."  

It is, at this moment, that Steve realizes that he's never really thought of the Hulk as a child. He's huge, and he looks like a big, green, muscular, still-physically-adult Bruce, but really, he's just a big, angry kid.   "Good. Because I wanted to say thank you for your help today. We would have been in bad trouble if it wasn't for you.  Nice job, hero."

The Hulk looks at him in confusion, which only cements the image harder; a face that big is only more expressive when you know there's a childlike mind behind it.  "You welcome?"  he says, as if he's not sure if that's the right thing to say.

Steve smiles, and nods approvingly, and that puts a smile on the big guy's face.  And that seems to do the trick of calming him down; all need for rage averted, the Hulk just... faints. No head injuries, no trauma, no struggle; he's just done, and he slumps over, peacefully asleep before he hits the ground.

"Huh. That's a little weird," Tony muses.  "I wonder if it's like that all the time? I've never actually been there to watch him change back." 

"Do you spend a lot of time with the Hulk? He seems to know you pretty well. I'm not sure how much divide there is between them, after the change."

"He knows me because Bruce does.  And I'm not sure either, really, Bruce never talks about it, even when I try to trick it out of him."  Tony shrugs, and lightly pats the Hulk's slowly-shrinking-and-pinkening shoulder. It makes him squirm in a way that really has no business being as darling as it is.  "I figure it's fine as long as it's not hurting anyone."

The change back from Hulk to Bruce is a mercifully short one; his bones resettle into place and his muscles go back to their proper positions.   It's another one of those weirdly tender moments, as Tony kneels down, and dresses Bruce himself. 

"Need a hand with that?" Steve asks, awkward as the instinct to be helpful and take care of Bruce wars against his instinct to not going around jostling unconscious naked people.  

Tony bunches up the T-shirt and lifts Bruce's arms one at a time to get them onto him.  "Not unless you want to. Although I will say for the record, it's a little weird that you'd offer to help me get his clothes on, but not off, especially when we're right there--"

"Tony--"

"--and he's all turned on, and I can never get his button-ups all the way off when he's got the bar in his hands--"

"This is really neither the time or the place, Tony, give it a rest."  Steve takes the opportunity to collect his shield and put it on his back; looks like the Hulk's finger may have bent the handles a bit. 

"I'm just saying."  Tony scoops up Bruce's legs and tugs the jeans on, appreciating the softness of he denim and the general comfort-level of the outfit he's picked out for post-Hulk re-clothing.  He's never been picky and he's not used to having options, but it makes Tony feel better to know that Bruce chooses comfortable, casual clothes for it.   "If you want to help, though, you could carry him;  I gotta call us our ride home."

 

\--

 

Fury manages not to be _too_ upset. The Ten Rings, as an outfit, are mysterious, and although there's definitely someone at the top of the chain controlling things, whoever that is is doing a very good job of making himself very unavailable, even to SHIELD's eyes.  He thanks Captain Rogers for his efforts and commends him on his investigation skills, and gives the usual-but-always-genuine gratitude speech for the Avengers' help in general.  

Bruce is placid and happy that it turned out all right, though his retelling of events is somewhat dreamlike; Tony's is pointed and technical, and he very graciously provides everything JARVIS scanned from the weaponized arc-reactor explosive, as well as the design plans for the Edith System and how to spot it.   Steve's is simple and to the point and aided by his memory for the layout.

The debriefing goes well.  With that particular installation obliterated, there's no reason to send any more SHIELD personnel in to investigate.  For once, Tony doesn't complain about being thrown under the bus to protect the enlisted, and Fury doesn't ignore him or call him a pain in the ass.  Lunch comes around in the form of cafeteria coffee in SHIELD-emblem-bearing styrofoam cups and pre-made, pre-sliced sandwiches in little plastic containers, and they're surprisingly tolerable.

All in all, it's been a good run and the day was saved with minimal casualties.  The meeting winds down, and Fury heads off to deal with whatever new fresh Hell has popped up on his radar, while the heroes polish off their lunch and wait for their ride home to finish its pre-flight protocols.

"So." Tony looks to Bruce with a pleased smile,  "How'd the Hulking out go, this time?"

"Not bad."  Bruce quietly munches on his tuna-salad sandwich, thoughtful. "It's hard to remember clearly-- but, ah... were there horses, at any point?" 

Steve thinks back to the Hulk and his absurdly violent playtime.  "Not any real ones. Maybe the Hulk just has a really good imagination?" 

"Hm. Maybe."

"That's a thought," Tony muses.  "Maybe we can put together a set of Hulk-sized crayons..."  He reaches over for Bruce's hand, eyeballing the width of his palm.  "What'd we say he is, 3.4 times your size, give or take?"

Bruce doesn't have it in him to be incredulous anymore when Tony comes up with weird ideas, and he's a little amused when Steve hasn't been around for enough of them to still look surprised.  

"Crayons. For the Hulk."

"Well, why not? Maybe it's a better avenue for him to communicate, or he could use a creative outlet, maybe have a different kind of fun sometime?  Could be good for him."  

Bruce chuckles affectionately.  "Or, you just want an excuse to give the Hulk a present."

"It's not such a bad idea," Steve offers.  

"You're _agreeing_ with me?" Tony almost spills his coffee.  "Somebody get the surveillance team and ask them if Hell just froze over."

"Har, har. No, I mean it.  I never really got to talk to the Hulk before today."   Steve polishes off the last bite of his sandwich.  "He can't socialize like the rest of us can.  We don't have a good way to show him that he's still a part of this team when he's not here, and he belongs on it as much as any of us. And he knows Tony, so if Tony wants to give him presents, why not?" 

Tony beams and nudges Bruce. "See? It's a good idea.  We'll invent a new color or something and trade the Crayola people for some Hulk-crayons.  Or paints, it's a lot harder to smash paint by accident. Hm."  He fishes his phone out of his pocket, and immediately rolls his eyes as he gets to his feet.  "Oh, come on, seriously? We're forty-thousand feet in the air, and my phone won't work indoors. Hey, Steve?"

"Hm?"  Steve looks up from a sip of his coffee and his own thoughts. 

"I need to take a walk. Polish that off for me, would you?"   Tony slides him the untouched half of his sandwich, and then heads for the door, watching his touchscreen and nothing else.

Bruce doesn't say anything, doesn't move, and Tony doesn't look back.  Steve smiles at it and laughs, once he's out of the room.

"He means well," Bruce offers.  

"Yeah, I know."  Steve gently tears it in half, gives one to Bruce, and pops the other in his mouth.

 

\--

 

They arrive back at the Tower just after dark.

The usual post-op procedures happen first: the suit has to get disassembled, evaluated for repairs or melted down for raw materials.  Bruce wants to check his own progress and take notes on his memories for later review.  Steve just wants a change of clothes, so he takes it upon himself to order take-out for the group.  All three of them need showers, and maybe a few minutes alone to think. 

Tony comes down first, mainly to fetch dinner from the delivery guy, who has that star-struck look of a man who did not expect to run facefirst into a bruised-up celebrity and absolutely did not expect to be tipped two hundred bucks because that's what Tony has in his pants pocket today. Tony procures from him a tall stack of dishes from that French place Natasha likes, and sends him on his way.

He'd love to be able to sit and analyze the order, since it was Steve's idea and he'd really love to have any goddamn clue what's running through Steve's head right about now, but he's nothing if not thorough, and there's essentially one of everything the restaurant serves here. And that suits Tony fine, because it'll all get eaten anyway.  It also includes a huge selection of desserts.

He brings it to the living room and spreads everything out on the table, and cues up the necessary elements for movie-watching: movie collection, handy drinks, and (taking a lesson from last time), some extra pillows.  Tony doesn't feel much like watching Westerns anymore, so he scans his library for more suitable things from the '50s.   _Rebel Without A Cause_ is out, because the last thing anyone needs right now is a movie about a dysfunctional family with the surname 'Stark' where the queer kid dies.   _The Day The Earth Stood Still_ is pretty much what they do for a living except a lot less exciting.   He passes _Shane_ over because even Steve couldn't miss the  gay subtext and he'd probably think Tony picked it just to be a pervert. 

Eventually, he settles for _On The Waterfront_ , which is both sufficiently classic and sufficiently moral to appeal to everybody, plus it's got Marlon Brando.

This accomplished, he decides that It's French food so obviously it needs wine, and he slips off to the kitchen to pour some.  Tony's about halfway through his first glass when Steve and Bruce come downstairs; he smiles and looks over to greet them, because they're talking animatedly about something-or-other and that makes him happy, and then they actually crest the kitchen floor and he can feel his face go completely slack.

That's not even _fair_.

They've both showered, so they're damp and clean and warm.  It creates this very close atmosphere of _home_ and _safe_ , and Tony's lately-neglected dominant tendencies respond to it like it's flipped on a light switch in his brain.  

Tony can't actually pick it out, but he knows the fresh, leafy scent of Bruce's marjoram soap so well his brain supplies it for him anyway.  The slightly-too-long legs of his sleep pants bunch up at the ankles, his bare feet underneath them pink from standing in hot water.   His posture is relaxed and easy, almost drowsy with it,  and naturally his hair is a mess of frothy, not-quite-drippy curls. The valiant knot holding the drawstring on Steve's own pants together is doing a fine job of keeping them hanging just below the rise of his hips, leaving a strip of his midriff bare, and of course his socks are clean.

But-- and he can tell by the impish grin that Steve is trying to hide and Bruce pointedly isn't-- they have added a small, very indicative, touch to the image that Tony is going to carry with him for a long, long time.

T-shirts, borrowed from Tony's very own collection.  Stark Industries on Bruce, Black Sabbath on Steve.  

"We figured this would spell it out," Bruce says, as though it really needs any explanation. 

"I heard 'we'," Tony responds, briefly distracted from the image before him by sudden onset responsibility, and looks to Steve.

Steve answers by taking a few steps forward into the kitchen, approaching Tony with an easy familiarity that's been a bit scarce, the past few days.   "I'm sorry about this morning. I misunderstood...if I'd been really listening, like I said I would, I wouldn't have blown you off."

Tony just shrugs.  "It was only because you were looking out for Bruce. You care about him; I can't fault you for that."

And, somehow, just like that, the issue's resolved.  They've apologized enough, and the answers are clear.

Steve takes a deep breath, and lets his guard drop enough to just look to Tony as the more experienced of the two: he's used to leading in battle, but the fighting is over, and as confident as he is that he can't really screw up here, this is still new.  "I want to do this right," he says, as if there's anything in the world that statement _wouldn't_ apply to.  "How do we do that, Tony?"

"All you have to do is trust us," Tony responds easily, and takes a brief sip of his wine before he sets the glass down.  "We can take the rest as it comes, just be honest about what you want, so we can make sure you get it; even if what you want is either or both of us. Are you cool with that?"

Steve nods, and looks back over at Bruce. "Does that sound okay to you, too?"

Bruce reaches over to rest his hand between Steve's shoulderblades; it's only a little more than a casual touch, but even just that small, shy point of contact is such a relief that Steve almost sags with it.  "Mm-hm."

Tony offers Bruce an approving smile, and then reaches up to tug gently on the collar of Steve's-- his own-- shirt.  "Good.  C'mere."  

It's not Steve's first kiss. It's not even his first kiss with a man. Still, there's definitely something slow and masterful in the way Tony's mouth seals against his own, the taste of the cabernet smooth on the breath shared between their parted lips.  And then it ends far too quickly, and Steve finds that flush riding high on his cheeks, because he'd been expecting something much less chaste from a self-confessed playboy whose sexual exploits have a tendency to end up on the news.

Tony hitches a shoulder with easy, casual grace, and seems to recognize that particular flavor of surprise on Steve's face.  "It's different when I actually give a damn," he explains, and then looks to Bruce, who seems a little taken aback himself.   "You okay, Big Science?"

"Y-yeah," he says, and looks between Steve and Tony, somewhere between impressed and surprised.  Bruce turns to Steve and asks,  "Just... does it look like _that_ , when it's him and me? Because if it is, I think I see what you mean." 

"It's probably a little different, you and I don't really have much in common, visually," Steve admits. "But, yeah, it's something else."

Tony grins, and leans in to catch Bruce's mouth himself.  And Steve's right: it's different, because with them, it's not new at all. Bruce leans into it almost before Tony even touches him, falling into exactly the right posture for Tony to subdue him with a liquid roll of his jaw and only the lightest brush of his tongue against his lower lip.

The heat of it flares in Steve's stomach and this time, he doesn't feel guilty about it in the least. 

Satisfied with Steve's comfort and Bruce's always-slightly-shy pleasure, Tony picks up his wineglass and heads toward the living room, quietly pleased when Steve and Bruce follow him just on principle.  Yeah, this is going to work out nicely.

He takes his privileged spot in the middle of the couch;  Steve elects to take a spot on his other side, and Bruce takes the floor in order to have better access to the food, but Tony and Steve don't have any objections because it puts him within leaning distance of Tony's knee.  

Steve smiles at this, and finds himself finally comfortable. He's not an outsider anymore, he's not an unwelcome intruder or a peeping Tom;  he belongs here, and he's starting to convince himself that he belonged here the whole time. "What are we watching?"

" _On The Waterfront_ , one of the greatest hits of the '50's.  Very classic, often quoted. I've never actually seen it, myself, but it's got all the stuff good movies need, supposedly."  

"Oh, nice, I've never actually seen the whole thing either," Bruce puts in, and begins plucking at the dinner-laden table for anything that looks edible among the containers. 

Tony cues the film, and as the DVD intro starts, he reaches over and hands out the extra pillows.  He doesn't know how exactly they'll wake up tomorrow, but however it goes, there's pretty much no reason to leave this couch. 

 

 


	12. Afterword

 

After several days of looking at this fic and trying to let the story flow like it did, I realized, it sort of ended without me.  It wasn't writer's block or a stall, there's just no more of it to tell, at least in this chain of events.  It's not _over_ , really, because there's so much more I want to write in the context of this fic!  So, my intention as of now, is to continue writing for it as a narrative universe.  Please accept my sincerest apologies if this comes as a dissappointment; my hope is that there'll be more in the future, and hopefully it will be better written. 

 

I've also never written anything long enough that I felt it warranted an afterword.  This story literally fell out of my hands over the course of several weeks; I didn't plan it, I didn't have it beta'd.  Hell, I don't think even spellchecked most of it.  It had a life of its own and trying to control it would have just been completely unnatural.  Moreover, my health has been poor, and writing has been immensely therapeutic, both for the chance to explore a creative outlet that I have never been comfortable working in, and for a chance to share it with people who were incredibly generous with their praise and support and encouragement.

 

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

 

Carina Scott, for giving me the prompt that inspired this fic in the first place, and for being so supportive when I pretty much completely went off the rails, and who I hope will forgive me for changing the ending.

 

AnonEHouse and Blakefancier,  who provided me this AO3 account

 

Lumine_Ardua, whose presence here and on LJ makes me feel I have a chance in this fandom.

 

LittleBlackLily, whose thoughtful, provocative comments were incentive enough to keep me writing even when I felt too sick to continue.

 

Supergreak, whose icon delights me whenever I see it <3

 

Singmyheart, who gave my fics a shot

 

blcwriter, whose comments made me feel like I had something to look forward to with each post

 

DaltonG, for being perceptive and communicative and so generous with observations and thoughts

 

And everyone else who commented, left kudos, or even just clicked by accident and made that Views ticker go up by one.  There are few joys in the human experience more exciting than recognition and validation.  

 

Thank you so much for your time, and your patience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sequel is up, and can be found here: 
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/484321/chapters/843172


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